The Federal Government has renewed its commitment to create jobs for the teeming youths in the country.

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, said this on Friday in Essien Udim, Akwa Ibom, where he commissioned the NDE/MDGs Skills Acquisition Training Centre.

Wogu said that the government would use job creation to confront the challenge of insecurity in the country.

“The commissioning of this skills acquisition centre is another giant stride of  President Goodluck Jonathan aggressively fight against unemployment, insecurity and poverty across the federation”.

“The social cost of youth unemployment to any economy is extremely high and largely unbearable. “Government response to this high social cost, obvious skills gaps and emergence of various regional militia groups is through the establishment of skills training centres across the nation,”Wogu said.

The minister added that government was making policies to reduce and eliminate poverty, particularly the target of reducing extreme poverty by 2015.

He further stated that the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Scheme Programme (SURE-P) was targeted at creating jobs for 370,000 youths, as part of the administration’s effort at reducing poverty.

Wogu added that government was also planning to review the school curricula with a view to restructure and keep pace with the emerging employment opportunities.

He said: “Today’s job openings are more fluid, demanding and challenging the adaptive capacity of both our `school leavers’ and graduates.

“Training centres like this should bridge the gap and produce the middle level manpower required for our economy. “

In his remarks, Gov. Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, represented by Mr Nsima Ekere, said that the problem of developing countries was how to create jobs for the teeming population.

Akpabio added that government could not create the needed jobs alone, except in collaboration with the private sector, and called on the private sector to be involved in helping young people to acquire skills.

He expressed appreciation to the National Directorate of Employment, for the establishment of the skills centre.

Earlier in his welcome address, the NDE Director-General, Malam Abubakar Mohammed, said that government had established 39 functional skills acquisition training centres in the country.

Mohammed said that plans were under way to establish one skills acquisition centre in all the 774 local government areas, to train the youth on skills techniques.

He added that so far, the NDE had trained 16,475 artisans/technicians and that most of them had been gainfully employed, and were contributing to national growth.

The high point of the event was the official commissioning of the skills acquisition training centre, which marked the commissioning of other two centres at Nsit Ubium and Udung Uko in Oron.

The centre is expected to train 450 youths across the three senatorial districts of the state.