The Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund, Joseph Ari, has described as worrisome development, the filling of many vacancies in some sectors of the economy by foreigners.
Ari stated this in Gombe on Wednesday at the commencement of a training of 500 youth under the National Industrial Skills Development Programme.
Represented by the Director, Technical and Vocational skills, Ishaku Shehu, the D-G attributed the development to lack of requisite technical skills by Nigerians.
Ari said: “What is perhaps most worrisome is the fact that despite the number of Nigerians without work, several surveys, including those conducted by the ITF, have revealed that vacancies exist in some sectors of the economy that are currently being filled by persons other than Nigerians because of the lack of requisite technical skills by our people.”
He said that it was in view of this that the ITF conceived the NISDP, aimed at developing the skills of Nigerians, particularly young women and men.
He enjoined the trainees to consider themselves lucky for being selected as beneficiaries of the programme and urged them to take the training seriously.
The 500 youth would be trained for the period of three months in Tailoring, Carpentry, Cosmetology, Hair dressing and Computer repairs.
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