(Business in Cameroon) - According to forecasts from the Ministry of Employment and Professional Training, 400,000 new jobs will be created throughout Cameroon during 2016, roughly 70,000 more than the previous year, the government daily Quotidien reports.

Indeed, in its address to the Nation on 31 December 2015, the Cameroonian Head of State, Paul Biya, announced that 337,660 jobs have been created in the country, according to the data compiled as at end November 2015. One can however note that the figure given by President Biya is lower than the 350,000 jobs announced at the beginning of the year by the Ministry of Employment.

According to this ministry, this target was not reached, partly, because of the late implementation of the 2015-2017 3-year emergency plan, based on which the ministry of Employment has forecast the creation of 35,000 jobs.

Nevertheless, the managers in this Ministry themselves confess that the employment figures in Cameroon are somewhat skewed, we learn, because of factors such as "the insufficiency of financial resources for the collection of information on employment, the reluctance of some companies in providing regular information on employed or recruited labour and to preparing workforce planning and management programmes".