Graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Abednego Brandy Opey has urged corporate institutions to stop blaming the high employee turnover of young professionals on laziness.
He posits that this trend is becoming worrying and urged corporate institutions to rather take an internal look at their practices.
“We really need to find out why the youth resign from jobs after a short while other than blame them of fearing hard work. Employers need to assess themselves, understand their conditions of service and revise it,” he stated.
The passionate young graduate disclosed, “With most young people leaving their jobs, employers need to quickly identify the problem with their relationship with employees and fix it,” he told Don Kwabena Prah on Happy98.9FM’s Epa Hoa Daben political talk show.
Advising corporate Ghana to increase retention amongst the youth, he emphasized on the expensive nature of hiring adding, “But if we make up our mind and say that because unemployment is high we can treat employees anyhow, then corporate Ghana will keep losing and employing new people all the time.”
Background
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has urged fresh graduates from the various tertiary institutions to find innovative ways of becoming entrepreneurs.
According to him, that is the only way the rising unemployment rate in the country can be reduced.
He said it will help reduce the over-reliance on the government for jobs, and also reduce the burden on the government’s payroll.
Speaking at the Springboard Youth Dialogues, Mr. Ofori-Atta explained that 60% of Ghana’s revenue is spent every month on the payment of salaries of public sector workers.
“That payroll is full because we are spending some 60% of our revenue on remunerating some 650,000 people. That is not sustainable.”
He told the graduating students that: “…You have the skills set to be able to do what you have to do. Our responsibility as a government is to create the environment and the macro stability, currency stability and ensure that you have access to the relevant skills and financing.”
He also said government is structuring its budget to focus on how to support the youth to create their own jobs.