The Federal Government yesterday clarified that lifting the embargo on staff recruitment into the federal civil service is not part of the strategies earmarked to reduce unemployment.
Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN), said doing so would be like a drop in the ocean and therefore not make the desired impact.
He spoke during the weekly ministerial briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Keyamo said President Muhammadu Buhari led government is targeting more high-yielding approaches to tackle the prevailing alarming unemployment rate.
The minister was responding to a question on the administration’s plan to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within a decade while shutting the door against recruitment into the service.
Keyamo said: “I think your question assumes that the kind of employment want to create is in civil service. That’s not the idea of employment. All around the world employment, public services employment account for less than one per cent of employment.
“So, it will be very short sighted of us as government, very myopic, very, like wrong game approach to think that we want to lift people out of poverty and create employment by opening up gaps in the civil service to employ people.
