Nigeria’s high unemployment rate has once again been brought to public consciousness as latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveal that unemployment rate in the country increased to 7.5 percent in the first Quarter (Q1) of 2015, from 6.4 percent in the last quarter (Q4) of 2014. The statistics office said that the increase in the number of unemployed persons was 861,110, while only 469,070 jobs were created within the period.
The statistics also show that a total of 17.7 million Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 65 were either unemployed or underemployed in the first three months of this year. Also disturbing, according to the new report, is the low number of jobs created by public institutions in the country.
Only a mere 5,726 jobs were created by this sector between December 2014 and March 2015, while the informal sector generated less than 400,000 within the same period. One fact to deduce from these statistics is that the number of people that became jobless (861,110) in the first quarter 2015 far exceeded the number of those who got jobs within the period. This is clear evidence that some persons who were previously in employment lost their jobs.
Altogether, the report from the NBS is a clear indication that unemployment in the country remains a grave concern which the federal government, and indeed, state governments, must tackle headlong. Failure to address this problem, especially graduate unemployment, could have far-reaching economic and social implications for the country.
The new statistics are not completely unexpected. They, indeed, appear to be a conservative estimate of the actual number of jobless Nigerians, especially the youths. At least 1.8 million graduates are reported to enter the labour market every year. Clearly, successive governments have not done much to create enabling environment for job creation.
Enablers of job creation such as energy supply, roads, access to finance and other infrastructure are still lacking. It must be said that regular electricity supply, which is a catalyst for job creation, is still a major problem.
The troubling unemployment rate, as grimly and graphically demonstrated in the trampling of graduate job seekers to death at last year’s Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise, means that more pragmatic steps need to be taken in both the public and private sectors of the economy to create jobs and encourage more jobless persons to start their own businesses.
Government agencies and institutions charged with job creation and implementation of poverty reduction programmes should be up and doing. Sitting on the fence is no longer an option, as the soaring rate of unemployment is a time-bomb. It could worsen the incidence of criminality or even provoke social unrest in the country.
President Muhammadu Buhari administration needs reminding of its promise to create more jobs. This is time to walk the talk by delivering on this promise. In that regard, we urge the Federal, State and Local Governments to design realistic job creation programmes. The methods used by the past administration for creation of jobs were apparently not effective enough. The Federal Government should bear in mind that high rate of unemployment and low per capita income are two key indices used to assess development. However, reduction of unemployment is not the responsibility of the government alone. Unemployed persons need to start working towards self-employment.
Emphasis should be placed on skill acquisition rather than paper qualification, while our institutions of learning need to restructure their curricula to give priority to entrepreneurship. Overall, Nigeria’s quest to be among the 20 top global economies will be a mirage if the current unemployment and poverty levels are not drastically reduced.
