Fresh graduates a burden to employers

By Paul Watala

Fresh graduates without practical skills are burden to employers, the Federation of Uganda Employers (FUE) has said.

The complaint was made by the Mbale Comprehensive school proprietor, Bernard Osenda, during the presentation of Federation of Uganda Employers annual report of 2012 to the Eastern Uganda Employers association at Resort hotel in Mbale.

“The newly recruited staffs from universities have become a burden to the companies that employ them. Employers are now required to first incur costs of training them on top of giving them jobs which makes it costly to the employers,” Osenda said.

During the meeting, members said that they are seeking for views from the employers across the country to see how the employees pay some amount of money for the training they get from companies because most them have got tendencies of running away after getting training.

“It is painful to incur training costs then shortly some abandon work for greener pastures somewhere. We should consider making agreements with these employees to work for a certain period of time so that employers can recover what they spent on their training,” He said.

He said that several companies and individuals spend time, money and other resources in training their employees but others only wait for those who have been trained and they offer them more salaries.

Shaffi Manafa, Policy analyst as well as Cooperate affairs officer of Federation of Uganda Employers explained that employers should involve the government and other local authorities to address the challenges they go through while executing their duties.

He advised some of the employers who have joined the federation to do so with the aim of getting one strong voice to fight for their rights.

Manafa revealed that the Federation of Uganda Employers is working out on a policy where all the newly recruited employees get skills at a cost, adding that companies will be inviting them to offer a service.

Mbale Residents District Commissioner, Paul Nangoli hailed the private companies for the services they render to the people of Uganda, adding that without them government would not manage to offer jobs to the citizens.

“Being realistic you employ more people than government and if at one time you decided to fire all the people this government will turn upside down. Private employers give this country direction and better education compared to the government owned school,” Nangoli said.

Nangoli explained that he is not discrediting government programmes but trying to be factual and appealed to government not to step on the toes of the private employers when they are delivering services to this nation.

Nangoli also appealed to government to continue taking institution and university instructors for practical refresher courses so that they can be equipped with new skills that will help new graduates to fit in the demanding communities.