TheCable

General Electric (GE) says it has invested about N720m ($3.6m) in the localisation of skills in Nigeria, training Nigerian engineers and technicians recruited by the company.

The Nigerians receive training in the assembly and test of subsea equipment and related skills in Brazil and Aberdeen in batches of 15.

Lazarus Angbazo, president and chief executive officer, GE Nigeria, made this disclosure as his company launched the GE skills white paper, a research document targeted at improving the capacity of Nigeria to harness the potential of its growing young population.

According to the white paper, Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to be home to a quarter of people aged 24 and below by 2030 with Nigeria contributing the most significant number of Africa’s youth population.

Titled ‘Building Strong Workforces to Power Africa’s Growth: The Future of Work in Africa’, conforms to the determination of GE, to partner countries in localising skills.

GE believes this would build the capacity of host countries to gainfully employ their teeming population in the near future.

L-R Aigbogun, Angbazo, Okonedo, Adetunji, Jaiyeola and other panelists at the launch

The document also identifies that Nigeria is currently unable to provide jobs and prospects to majority of its young and growing population, a situation buttressed by statistics that put youth employment in the country at 50%.

Angbaz said the situation must change “because it condemns large numbers of young people to low living standards and represents a terrible waste of human capital that undermines future economic growth, but also because it poses a risk to social and economic stability”.

To harness the opportunities that the future presents, the GE boss said his company embarked on a thorough interrogation of the situation, and has come out with recommendations highlighted in the skills white paper.

GE recommends a stronger education system with deliberate emphasis on science, technology, education and mathematics and more open and flexible labour markets.

It also canvasses for a talent localisation strategy, pursued in partnership with global companies, while exploring the pipeline of skills needed to leverage the technological advances of the future.

Panelists at the launch, which held at The Intercontinental hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos include Enase Okonedo of the Lagos Business School, Laoye Jaiyeola of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), Adeola Adetunji, managing director, Coca Cola; and Frank Aigbogun, publisher of Businessday.