The Minister of Employment, Labour Relations and Pensions, Ignatius Baffuor Awuah, last Friday inaugurated the newly constructed Public Employment Centre at Odomase in the Sunyani West Municipality of the Bono Region.

The facility is one of the 16 employment centres that are being constructed across the country (one in each region) under the Ghana Jobs and Skills Project.

The project aims to support skills development and job creation in the country and provide opportunities for the government to enhance the capacity of the Labour Department at the national, regional and district levels. 

It includes the development of the Ghana Labour Market Information System (GLMIS) and the construction of public employment centres across the country to host it.

Employment centres 

Inaugurating the one-storey facility,Mr Baffuor-Awuah explained that the construction of the centres was a way of positioning the Labour Department of the ministry to provide quality services to employers, job seekers and training institutions.

He said the centres also provided the opportunity for job seekers to access a wide range of labour market resources, to enable them to study emerging trends, acquire the skills in high demand and adjust their career paths to meet the demands of the world of work.

He stated that career guidance and job counselling sessions, which were important services, would also be rendered by the employment centres to advise job seekers and young persons on career choices. 

Mr Baffuor-Awuah added that the government was convinced that services that would be rendered by the public employment centres would go a long way to contribute to the development of critical skills set for national economic transformation, minimisation of skills mismatch and reducing unemployment. 

"With the existence of Public Employment Centres,our young people looking for jobs and employable skills can always enquire about the available vacancies, acquire the skills they need to get jobs and be advised on how and where they can acquire the skills to improve their career path choices," he stated. 

In addition to the one-storey facility,Mr Baffuor-Awuah also presented a double-cabin pickup vehicle to facilitate the operations of the centre.

Constraints Looking back at the work of the Labour Department Baffuor-Awuah observed that over the years, the department had tried under difficult conditions to provide labour market and employment promotion services to employers and job seekers.

He said at the time of the design of the Ghana Jobs and Skills Project,the ministry noticed that the fragmented nature of the labour market, coupled with the deplorable state of infrastructure at the Labour Department,made it difficult for the ministry to coordinate and promote employment services. 

"The department was heavily constrained in terms of the collection and dissemination of information regarding interactions in the labour market to enable stakeholders to make informed decisions about the dynamics of the labour market," he said.

The Bono Regional Minister, Justina Owusu-Banahene, said that even though the centre was located in the Sunyani West Municipality, it was established for residents in all the 12 districts and municipalities across the region. 

She, therefore, encouraged jobseekers and employers across the region to always contact officials of the centre to put their information on the GLMIS in order to derive the benefits of services of the facility.

The Deputy Chief Labour Officer, Frederick Abekah, thanked Mr Baffuor-Awuah for such a laudable initiative which had ignited the services of the Labour Department.

"We are overwhelmed by the provision of the centres, which are equipped with modern information communication facilities, to enhance the delivery of quality services to both jobseekers and employers, among other people, within the job market," he said.