ILO urges new partnership to fight poverty and social exclusion

Chuma, who spoke at the just concluded World Economic Forum on Africa which held in Abuja, said “We need greater cooperation among governments, employers and workers to fight unemployment and under-employment; we need to promote inclusive growth and social inclusion and social dialogue has provided a firm platform for such collaboration.”He added that “African youths […]

Chuma, who spoke at the just concluded World Economic Forum on Africa which held in Abuja, said “We need greater cooperation among governments, employers and workers to fight unemployment and under-employment; we need to promote inclusive growth and social inclusion and social dialogue has provided a firm platform for such collaboration.”
He added that “African youths are grappling with unemployment and under-employment despite their education. Employers need skills that are relevant to their industries; they see African youths as being educated yet not possessing employable skills that the employers need.”
According to him, one of the major challenges facing Africa is the limited attention devoted to the importance of demand and supply.
“Perhaps, a lot of our countries have not paid attention to the importance of aligning the supply of labour with the demand of certain skills”, he stressed.
According to the ILO official, “there has to be a link between the world of work and world of learning so that by the time our young people leave school they do have skills that employers can utilize because the complaint is that there are jobs but no skills”.
However, he noted that despite progress in productivity in some organizations, workers’ wages do not match the progress in productivity as many workers get less than they ought to earn thereby worsening the problem of poverty.
“Workers’ wages had not kept pace with productivity. People work harder but are still poor” and the ILO has drawn the attention of government and employers to this challenge for consultation.