Sanwo-Olu to scale up efforts in job creation

Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State says his administration will scale up efforts in job creation to meet the growing challenge of youth unemployment.

He said this at the third edition of the Lagos State Employment Summit in Victoria Island, Lagos, on Wednesday.

Sanwo-olu unveiled the Lagos State Management Information System (LMIS) — an online platform at the third edition of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) summit at Victoria Island, Lagos.

It was reported that the LMIS is a network of stakeholders as well as an online platform to communicate data and information related to the job market in Lagos.

The governor admitted that inadequate data collection for unemployability and efficiency of LSTEF in creating employment challenged the agency to make data available to build investors confidence and trust to do more.

“Data gathering is key because a lot of states are going to be coming to see how they’ve done it ,other states will like to see how it has been done.

“So we need to be able to have a robust data gathering capability, data reliability as part of the things that is very important.

“The future of work skills that is required to ensure that you’d be able to meet not just today’s need as and when due,” he said.

Sanwo-Olu said that the state was willing to work with investors to help in creating more jobs and training youths to become entrepreneurs.

Mr Fola Adeola, a founding member of Guaranty Trust Company, in his keynote address, said that the government and well meaning private individuals should shift attention to helping the youths become entrepreneurs.

Adeola said that spending tax payers money to create jobs was a smart investment that would yield more tax revenue for the government.

“It will also be great to have data of the informal sector, given that they represent a significant portion of the work force.

“By having open communication utilising multifaceted data on quality work creation, we can all unite around this to develop more effective strategies for addressing Lagos and consequently Nigeria’s employment challenges.

The acting LSTEF’s Executive Secretary, Mrs Feyisayo Alayande, noted that the summit was necessary to scale up efforts in creation of decent jobs to meet the growing challenge of youth unemployment.

“We have about five or six pillars that we used to deliver this employability access to capital Lagos innovate our training arm for technology and business support.

“This event today is saying to all our stakeholders that we have a call to action in our little space, we need to collaborate we need to make impact,” she said.

The highpoint of the event was the inauguration of the LMIS to bring stakeholders in the employment sector together and to ensure creation of decent jobs.