The Lagos State Government has said the Dangote Group and other partners of the State Employment Trust Fund’s Employability Support Project have agreed to employ the over 350 graduates of the project following the completion of an eight-week training programme.
The Executive Secretary of LSETF, Akintunde Oyebode, who stated this on Tuesday in Ikeja, commended Dangote Group and other partners for the gesture, saying the Employability Support Project was a way of providing a viable platform to bridge the gap of shortage of skilled and employable labour in the job market.
He said, “Manpower skills’ gap remains a significant issue for businesses operating in the state and we are pleased to see that world-class brands are satisfied with the quality of our trainees and the scheme in general.
“I enjoin other corporate organisations to follow Dangote’s lead in recruiting the well trained and certified manpower that the Employability Support Project has produced, thereby supporting the government’s effort to bridge the unemployment gap in the state.”
Oyebode explained that the Employability Support Project was an initiative of the LSETF with support from the United Nations Development Programme to provide unemployed and underemployed youths in Lagos State with vocational skill training by certified and credible training partners.
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer, Arc Skills Nigeria, Amit Washington, represented by the General Manager, Mrs. Ebunoluwa Bolodeoku, said the firm also organised a job fair as part of the training, adding that the decision by Dangote and other partners to employ trainees of the Employability Support Project was a testament to the quality of the scheme.
“The vision for setting up this project, the first of its kind in Nigeria, is to increase the pool of employable graduates.
“As such, it is fulfilling that a multinational organisation of Dangote’s calibre has shown interest in recruiting a large number of our trainees.”
He added that about 150 graduate trainees had been selected for immediate employment in addition to 600 job commitments from leading organisations, including Brickhouse Construction Company, Genesis Cinemas, Crown Nature Plc, David Wej and Construction Kaiser.
