Find jobs for youths – Caribbean Voice appeals to Youth Department

In light of the recent revelation that just about 40 per cent of the country’s youths are unemployed and many are now becoming depressed and even suicidal, The Caribbean Voice is lobbying for the Department of Youth to help young people find jobs.

Representative of the agency, Bibi Ahamad told this newspaper that youths have been approaching the organisation in search of a job, however, they are unable to help as they operate voluntarily.
Ahamad said after working with youths she has realised that most young people have graduated from secondary school with good grades but are unable to secure jobs. “It’s difficult for them to get a job. I know young people who left the University of Guyana and have a degree but can’t get a job and people out of school who have eight and nine subjects and it’s still difficult for them to get a job,” she said.
She further noted that the youth unemployment rate may very well be over 40 per cent in Guyana as she has been personally working with youths, 90 per cent of whom are unemployed.
On this note, The Caribbean Voice spokesperson said that the Government needs to work on job creation for its young people. “They need to create job employment for the youths…they need to put some plan of action in place to assist the youths because you come out of high school and you have eight or nine subjects and you can’t even [get] a job, you become depressed,” she explained.
Ahamad reminded that the Government, before it took office, promised to create job opportunities but the fruits of those promises are yet to be manifested. The activist told Guyana Times that she knows for a fact that youths are becoming depressed and even suicidal because of the lack of jobs, as she has been counselling young people to ensure that they stay on the right path.
In a letter to this publication, The Caribbean Voice said, “We appeal to the Department of Youth to set up and widely publicise a mechanism that can easily and quickly offer job placements for young people across Guyana”.
The organisation believes that the mechanism to help youths can include a component that facilitates placements of vacancies and matches young people seeking jobs with vacancies for which they are suited.
Furthermore, The Caribbean Voice noted that it lauds the “job readiness training” initiative that the Youth Department has announced intention to launch soon. However, the agency said that it looks forward to the training being available in all 10 Administrative Regions as young people all across the country desperate for jobs may very well not know what to do when they join the workforce.
The Youth Department, through its Director Melissa Carmichael, announced last week that it is seeking to implement the training to prepare young people for the world of work. Carmichael pointed out that this project would require officials meeting with young people, not only within fifth and sixth forms, but those who have already left school. According to her, youths require career guidance to prepare them for employment.
Presidential Candidate for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Irfaan Ali has already blasted the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government for failing to deliver most of its manifesto promises to the Guyanese people in the more than four years the Administration has been in office, one of which included job creation.
Among the host of promises the PPP has mentioned that will be in its manifesto, is the creation of 50,000 new jobs and according to the party’s presidential candidate, even this figure is too conservative.