Government in collaboration with its development partners has renovated and revamped eight Public Employment Centres (PECs) at strategic locations to provide active labour market services, job matching and career guidance to job seekers.

Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, said the initiative would improve the capacity of the Labour Department and enhance efficiency.

The Minister who said this at a media briefing in Accra on Wednesday disclosed that the centres could be located in Accra, Tema, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Tarkwa, Sunyani, Tamale and the Employment Information Branch (EIB) of the Labour Department (LD).

He said apart from the routine active labour market functions of the PECs, the main purpose of the renovations and other capacity building interventions was to enable them and sections of the Labour Department collect and disseminate labour market information in a timely manner.

“These, among others, are some of the efforts being made towards the full operationalisation of the Ghana Labour Market Information System (GLMIS)“.

Mr Baffour-Awuah said for that reason, a Ghanaian-German Job Centre had been established in Accra by the Ministry in collaboration with the German International Development Corporation (GIZ).

He said the purpose of the Centre was to enhance the provision of decent employment opportunities for job seekers, particularly, young persons who had the intention of migrating outside Ghana through unapproved routes.

Since the inception of the Ghanaian-German Job Centre in 2017, a total of 65,277 persons had accessed its services, he stated.

“Out of this number, 28,901 accessed labour market information/career guidance/coaching services, while 4,243 received start-up and business development services to enable them to establish their businesses“.

The Minister noted that 2,527 were also posted to firms as interns, a total of 2,606 placed in available job vacancies and 614 returning migrants also received psychosocial and reintegration support.

The Minister said in 2017, Government took initiatives to transform the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) to strategically position it for growth and sustainability.

“This included investing in sustainable growth, promoting inclusive development, job creation and positioning YEA as a facilitator of jobs“.

He said, as a result, YEA launched three new flagship programmes such as the YEA Job Centre, the Regional Flagships Programme and the Artisan Directory.

The Minister said between 2017 and 2020, some 143,963 Ghanaians had been connected to various forms of employment through programmes and modules implemented by the Agency.

In the coming months, YEA looked forward to rolling out programmes to include; “Work Abroad” as part of efforts to facilitate job creation for the youth, he said.

“In the meantime, the Agency has received employment requests from Japan, Australia and the Cayman Islands and will continue to set up structures at the Regional and District levels to support the youth.

The Agency is also planning to roll out other initiatives such as the Ekumfi Chalk Making Programme, which is expected to employ over 100 youth with disability as well as the Artisan Directory, which is expected to recruit 5,000 beneficiaries.”

Mr Baffour-Awuah noted that the government had passed a Legislative Instrument (L.I) for domestic workers regulations to ensure full labour protection.

The new regulation is a precursor to the lifting of the temporary ban on recruitment of domestic workers to the Gulf States and it is also to provide the basis for executing Bilateral Labour Agreements (BLAs) with destination countries.