The Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSMAD) will host a national labor conference within the next two months in a bid to identify challenges and find solutions to the rising unemployment rate in the country.

Officials said the ministry also plans to promise to create one million jobs in the future.

MoLSMAD spokesman Abdul Fatah Eshrat told TOLOnews that at least 400,000 workers qualify to enter the labor market in Afghanistan every year but only a small number of them manage to find jobs.

Currently, Afghanistan has 1.9 million eligible individuals for work, the spokesman said.

“We will reaffirm our commitments we have made in the past. And meanwhile, we will have their commitments (government and the international community) on overcoming unemployment and their cooperation with us,” he said.

Eshrat said at least 8,000 vacant posts will be announced by Independent Administrative Reforms and Civil Services Commission this week.

“The Independent Administrative Reforms and Civil Services Commission will announce 8,000 posts and then it will announce at least 9,000 posts – which are part of the new plans,” he said.

Meanwhile, acting minister of higher education, Abdul Latif Roshaan, said many university graduates fail to find jobs due to a shortage of employment opportunities in the country.

“Some ministries have strategic plans, based on which, they will tell us about the specialists they will need in the next four years. We have plans to merge a number of overloaded faculties or create new departments,” he said.