The Minister of Employment and Vocational Training briefed the press on the excercise in Yaounde on February 3, 2016.

The Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, Zacharie Perevet has disclosed that the three-year Emergency Plan is expected to create 34,978 jobs. He said by December 31, 2015, over 380, 000 jobs had been counted for the year. He was speaking in Yaounde on February 3, 2016, during a press conference to reveal the methodology for data collection on job creation in Cameroon. Zacharie Perevet stated, inter alia, that his Ministry hinges on two sources to assemble data on the country’s employment performance.

Administrative Sources

The list is not exhaustive, but the few administrative structures that furnish employment figures to the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training include the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms, private placement offices and enterprises, the National Employment Fund, the Integrated Support Programme for Informal Sector, PIAASI and other government-owned programmes. The structures are an important database constituting a viable information source for government.

Investigative Sources

The National Observatory for Employment and Vocational Training, ONEFOP of the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training together with staff of the National Institute of Statistics, devolved services of the National Employment Fund and the Integrated Support Programme for Actors of the Informal Sector comb entreprises, public and para-public companies as well as Non-governmental Organisations with authorisations to operate in Cameroon to identify new jobs. They hand out forms whereby staff of personnel departments list the number of jobs created, be they temporal or permanent. Data collection networks at regional, Divisional and Subdivisional levels are helping.

Setbacks Abound

Minister Zacharie Perevet says the exercise is not a sample-making methodology, but recognises shortfalls. He said his team was working on stepping up their approach, though difficulties abound. He cited the lack of movable equipment, insecurity in the Far North and East Regions, the non-mastery of employment information by some ministerial departments, the reticence by some companies to declare the entire number of jobs created for fear of taxes and the lack of sensitisation as some of the hitches staring the exercise on the face.