Stop looking for jobs, they are not there - minister

Kampala. It is no longer tenable for youth to look for jobs in the current economic environment because they are not anywhere, the state Finance minister in charge of General Duties, has said.
Speaking during the opening of the annual Global Entrepreneurship Week conference in Kampala on Wednesday, Mr Gabriel Ajedra Aridru said the current education system was designed in a way that sets focus on seeking employment instead of creating entrepreneurs.
“If you are a job seeker then you are in a wrong place [Global Entrepreneurship Week conference]. Entrepreneurs are people who are always thinking. They are always looking for problem to solve. [Youth must] identify opportunities … stop searching [for jobs] look for challenges and opportunities,” he said.
Mr Ajedra also noted that entrepreneurship will provide Uganda with real and organic growth as it tends to have a multiplier effect in terms of creating employment and providing revenue to government through taxation.
Uganda still grapples with high levels of youth unemployment, which according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics stand at more than 80 per cent.
Mr Ajedra also noted that the more than 400,000 graduates that are released into the job market per annum cannot be fully absorbed by the job market, which means that majority of them will have to create their own jobs.
The Global Entrepreneurship Week seeks to promote jobs creation as a way of establishing self-sustenance growth.
Mr Charles Ocici, the Enterprise Uganda executive director urged government to attend to challenges that continue to impede business growth and entrepreneurship.
He said entrepreneurs have been abandoned in a sea of challenges, which has negatively impacted their growth into self-sustaining business.
“It is high time the government attended to entrepreneurship [by] dedicating resources as other countries are doing to deliberately build great entrepreneurs. And when I say build, it is not about loans [for young people, it is not about women, it is not about banks for agriculture or cooperatives. It is about teaching people in broad terms about finance,” Mr Ocici said.
He said available opportunities should be easy to tap into, arguing that government should desist from quick fixes through creating sustainable and long term solutions.