The Nation Newspaper

Category: Labour

  • NECA out with platform to tackle youth unemployment

    The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has introduced an online solution initiative tagged: NECApreneur, to tackle youth unemployment.

    NECA said the initiative was aimed at providing easy access for the teeming Nigerian youths to upscale and upgrade their skills in entrepreneurship and business planning.

    The national umbrella body of employers in Nigeria said the programme was part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aimed at bringing its expertise and high-profile network to work with the government in equipping youths to embrace entrepreneurship.

    At a training organised by the association in Lagos, its Director-General, Olusegun Oshinowo, urged youths to take their destiny in their hands and embrace entrepreneurship as a veritable employment option.

    He advised them to position themselves and take advantage of business opportunities without being discouraged by the current situation of the country, noting that the prospects and potential for the economy are quite great.

    “With NECApreneur, we will empower and inspire them by ways they can turn their business ideas into profitable businesses, connect and link them with our high profile network,” he said, assuring the youth that they will get the best out from the initiative.

    He continued:“The whole idea is to create a clime where we can get our undergraduates before they leave the university and for graduates to embrace entrepreneurship, a situation where unemployment has reached the roof top, we demand a new approach.”

    NECApreneur Project Manager, Peter Aire, who took the audience through the rudiments of the two months training, which runs in three stages, described NECApreneur online as a one-stop-shop where all the resources a young entrepreneur requires to succeed are encapsulated.

    According to Aire, “we recruit on that platform, train and provide them with relationships that they require to make success of their entrepreneurships. The requirements by NECApreneur include internship, support and funding.”

    The programme had heads from the entrepreneurship departments from universities and other organisations in attendance and they all spoke at length on how they had gone beyond the National University Commission (NUC) curriculum to inculcate entrepreneur as a course of study and how they had groomed their students to become prospective entrepreneurs.

  • Unemployment in sub-Sahara Africa to hit 7.2% this year, says ILO

    The unemployment rate in the sub-Sahara is expected to rise to 7.2 per cent this year, with additional one million new entrants into the jobless population, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said.

    According to the report tagged: “World Employment and Social Outlook: Trend 2018”, the additional one million unemployed persons are influenced by the region’s high levels of labour force growth.

    It stated that more than one in three workers are living in conditions of extreme poverty, while almost three out of four workers are in vulnerable employment.

    The report said the global unemployment rate has been stabilising after a rise in 2016. It is expected to have reached 5.6 per cent in 2017, with the number of unemployed exceeding 192 million persons.

    As the long-term global economic outlook remains modest despite stronger than expected growth in 2017, the report attributed the positive trend between 2017 and 2018 mainly to the strong performance of labour markets in developed countries, where the unemployment rate is projected to fall by an additional 0.2 percentage points in 2018 to reach 5.5 per cent; a rate below pre-crisis levels.

    In contrast, employment growth is expected to fall short of labour force growth in emerging and developing countries, but has nevertheless, improved compared to 2016.

    In his reaction to the new findings, ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, said: “Even though global unemployment has stabilised, decent work deficits remain widespread: the global economy is still not creating enough jobs. Additional efforts need to be put in place to improve the quality of work for job holders and to ensure that the gains of growth are shared equitably.”

  • Unemployment figure shows crisis of governance

    Issa Aremu, General Secretary National Union of Garments and Textile Workers of Nigeria (NUGTWN) and Vice President of Industrial Global Union  (IGU), have said the latest unemployment figure indicated crisis of governance.

    Aremu said the latest figure by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which said 7.53 million, out of Nigeria’s labor fource of 85.08 million are unemployed, once again confirmed the crisis of governance and underdevelopment in Nigeria.

    He said: “If we had the army of underemployed, the crisis of unemployment has assumed tragic proportions in form of various mass crimes as restless youths swell the ranks of kidnappers and insurgents.  All tiers of government must rise to promote development through re-industrialisation, uninterrupted electricity supply and war against smuggling, which have made the products of local industries uncompetitive”.

    He said there was an urgent need for a bipartisan employment drive in the country.

    “Sustainable jobs can only come from industry and massive public infrastructural development such as railways, roads construction, reinvention of public schools and hospitals. Mass unemployment means value-subtraction for Nigeria at a time when there is much work to be done and the nation is begging for growth and development,’’ he said.

  • Ministry strengthens fight against child labour

    The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Bolaji Adebiyi, has  restated  the  ministry`s preparedness to champion the  fight against child labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and forced labour in line with emerging global trends in labour administration.

    Adebiyi stated   this  while addressing the strategy meeting of the National Steering Committee on Child Labour, in Abuja. He acknowledged that one of the emerging global trends in labour administration is the renewed fight against child labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and forced labour as encapsulated in the Alliance 8.7.

    He said Nigeria, as a signatory to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, should not be found lagging behind, but rather, should be at the forefront of the pursuit of these objectives.

    He said the fight against the scourge of child labour will require the innovation and collaboration of stakeholders, as the Federal Government cannot do it alone.

    He said: “Eradication of child labour can only be accelerated through leveraging expertise across diverse fields. Hence, Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals and Alliance 8.7, emphatically requests stakeholders in the fight against the scourge of child labour to work together in new innovative and collaborative ways.”

    Also, the Federal Government has restated its commitment to reduce unemployment in the country through the construction of new skills acquisition centres, as well as completion and rehabilitation of abandoned centres.

    The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Federal Specialist Skills Acquisition Centre, Ifitedunu, Dunukofia Local Government Area of Anambra State, said the government was working towards reducing unemployment in the country within a short to medium-term frame.

    “The good news is that the Federal Government, through well-articulated strategies, which include the construction of new skills acquisition centres, completion and rehabilitation of abandoned and dilapidated centres across the country, is working towards curtailing unemployment in the country,” he said.

    Ngige stressed that the focus on vocational skills acquisition as a strategy to combat youth unemployment, is predicated on its successful deployment by both developing and developed nations to stem the tide of unemployment and trends in modern labour market demand for a developing nation like Nigeria.

    He said the specialised skills acquisition centres are also designed to provide hands-on skills in modern building and construction techniques, including welding and fabrication to produce metal doors among others.

    “We are focusing on skills acquisition because the trend in modern labour market demands for a growing country like ours. With a huge housing deficit of 17 million and with the estimated construction of 1,000 housing units in each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria has the potential of creating over three million jobs in a year with huge multiplier effects.

    “Countries like America, Britain and Canada are reported to have recorded 80 to 70 per cent contributions to their GDP through housing and construction sector, this is achievable in Nigeria,” Ngige said.

  • Over 25,000 pensioners not on Fed Govt payroll

    More than 25,000 pensioners are still excluded from the Federal Government’s payroll of retirees, according to the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP).

    Lagos Chapter Chairman of NUP, Joseph Dele, told reporters that the affected pensioners were not among over 300,000 paid under Defined Benefits Scheme and Contributory Pension Scheme.

    The NUP urged Federal Government to mandate the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) to conduct verification exercise for the affected pensioners to enable them get gratuities for their long years of service.

    He described allegations that officials of the union were involved in pension fund scam as an excuse not to pay NUP members excluded from the payroll system.

    “The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, alleged that the pension fraud was perpetrated by public officials with the active connivance of NUP, Association of Federal Public Service Retirees, among others.

    “NUP did not collude with anyone to list 16,238 ghost pensioners to siphon N839 million to fictitious pensioners monthly.

    “Over 25,000 and not 16,238 members were still excluded on the payroll.

    “They are not fictitious pensioners as claimed by the AGF and as we speak they are not on federal government payroll,” he said.

    Dele explained that only one per cent of monthly pensioners’ fund was remitted to the NUP secretariat for maintainance and other ad-hocs services.

  • Job creation: experts seek economic diversification

    Experts have said until indices that drive the economy and expand employment are prioritised, the rate of unemployment in the country will continue to rise.

    They argued that what drives employment is consumer demand, sayingn that if the consumer demand is high, investors, producers and manufacturers will expand their capacities which will in turn create  jobs.

    The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently in its report, projected that Nigeria is likely going to experience an increased unemployment rate in 2018.

    NBS said Nigeria’s unemployment rate has worsened from 16.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2017 to 18.8 per cent in the third quarter of the same year also. According to data released by the NBS, the rise was occasioned by the economic recession that saw the nation’s growth decelerate, until September 2017 when Nigeria finally exited recession.

    They submitted that the combined forces of double-digit inflation, high unemployment rate and a fragile Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, which is still below the rate of population growth, may conspire to prevent any significant economic improvement.

    To curtail the rising crime wave across the country, the experts called on the government to fast-track its diversification strategy as encapsulated in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) by supporting growth in income enhancing and job creating sectors, such as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), mining and agriculture.

    A retired Federal Permanent Secretary, Mr Philip Asiodu, who at a forum recently spoke on, ‘Unemployment, youth restiveness and development challenges’, lamented the rate of youth unemployment  in the country.

    He observed that about three quarter of the crimes committed are done by young men who are jobless and become readily disposed to social vices. He described the involvement of thousands who perish at the Mediterranean Sea and the traumatised youths returning from Libya as disgraceful and a national embarrassment.

    Corroborating Asiodu, the Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Lagos State Council, Idowu Adelakan, also attributed the high rate of crime in the country to the high level of unemployment, especially among youths.

    He said the rate of crime, which has snowballed in recent times, was the result of unemployed graduates roaming the streets and causing insecurity.

    An economist, Henry Boyo, said that so long as inflation is in double digit, it will be inappropriate to say there will be increase in the rate of employment possibilities in 2018 or in any year, because where inflation is in one or two per cent, it conserves and protects consumers’ demand.

    He cited an instance when there is a high demand for bread, stating that if there is no consumer demand for bread, there would be no baker but as a result of rising inflation, if the whole of Nigeria could buy  100 loaves of bread before but has made it possible that the whole of Nigeria can only buy a loaf of bread, it means that half of the bakeries in Nigeria would have to close up.

    In essence, it means there must be a demand for an item to be produced in the first place before producers and manufacturers can employ.

    According to Boyo, people don’t employ workers just to pay them, rather they employ them so that they can work and produce something.

    He said: “If you have adequate and increasing consumer demand, forget about rise in employment. What determines consumer demand is purchasing power. If you have a situation where you are losing up to 20 per cent of your income every year as a result of inflation, it means you are going to be buying less bread, which translates that you will have less and less people being employed. This is basic.’’

  • Workers battle robots for limited jobs

    Workers battle robots for limited jobs

    The increasing use of automated machines and robots in workplaces presents the latest threat to employment opportunities in the country. This evolving trend has created fears among Nigerians that their sources of income could be taken over by the machines, Ajose Sehindemi reports.

    A factory worker, Mr Adebogun Olawale, has been an underpaid machine operator for a multinational company in Lagos for the past five years.

    He lives with his wife and three children in a one- room apartment  in an undeveloped part of Lagos.

    He has witnessed the sack of  several of his colleagues due to downsizing of the company’s workforce. For several months, he was the only machine operator left in the company.

    But he was shocked some weeks ago when he resumed duty but was told  his services would no more be needed. He has been replaced.

    Mr Alimi Ogunwale is a middle level manager in one of the multinationals in the food, alcohol and beverage sector. He has been assured of job security due to the fact that he has paid his due and slaved for the company to get to the level he is.

    His confidence was much that he lived on the fast lane. But when the company discovered  that some of the staff can be replaced in a cost effective measure and increase  productivity, he was let off with 14 others, four middle level managers like him and10 junior workers in his department.  He is presently in shock as all the incentives disappeared into the thin air and especially in a situation where  he is yet to complete the construction of a house for his family.

    He and the others are currently negotiating with the multinational on their pay off.

    Aside underemployment, late payment of salaries, mass sack of workers, expatriates proliferation, absence of decent work and non-payment of pension plaquing workers across the country, a potent threat is on the horizon that would lead to more workers being laid off and further swell the number of the unemployed in the country raising security challenges for the government.

    There is a new threat to their jobs This time,  they are not losing (jobs) it to an expatriate or a more qualified, but to robots.

    A new report released by McKinsey & Company indicated that by 2030,as many as 800 million workers worldwide could be replaced by robots.

    The study found that in more advanced economies like the U.S and Germany, up to one-third of the 2030 workforce may need to learn new skills and find new work, while economies like China’s, roughly 12 per cent of workers may need to switch occupations by 2030.

     

    Industrialisation 4.0

    Industrialisation 4.0 represents the fourth industrial revolution in the manufacturing and industry sector of the economy. It is the current industrial transformation with automation, data exchanges, cloud, cyber-physical systems, robots, big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and autonomous industrial techniques to realise smart industry and manufacturing goals in the intersection of people, new technologies and innovation.

    It is the era of machines and robots aided by technology, and for employers, issues like wage increase, industrial actions will be no more.

    Before now, we have had the First Industrial Revolution which used water and steam power to mechanise production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third with the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

    According to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Representative to ECOWAS and Regional Director of the Regional office Hub, Mr Jean Bakole, Industry 4.0 is the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies which creates a “smart factories”.

    He said: ‘’The basic principle of Industry 4.0 is that by connecting machines, work pieces and systems, businesses are creating intelligent networks along the entire value chain that can control one another simultanously

    He said the question therefore is, ‘can labour unions afford further job losses for their members at a time when most African countries are already grappling with the challenges of high unemployment? If job losses cannot be accommodated, what options are there for the labour unions?

    The President, National Union of Chemical Footwear Rubber Leather and Non-Metallic Products Employees (NUCFRLANMPE), Com Babatunde Olatunji said the usage of machines has been reported to him by some of the members of the union working for some multinationals in the country.

    As automation substitutes for labour across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labour. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement of workers by technology will, in aggregate, result in a net increase in safe and rewarding jobs.

    A former Vice President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and the Vice President, Industrial Global Union, Comrade Issa Aremu described the threat of the fourth revolution as one that cannot be wished away and if not well managed, industrial crisis will be the result.

     

    Experts view and solution

    Aremu, who doubles as the General Secretary, National Union of Garment and Textile Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), agrees that although technology makes work easier, but it also could lead to job losses.

    The labour leader cautioned that employers and governments should not criminalise skill gaps as a result of digitalisations of production. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, he further explained, calls for the need to develop skills and know-how by workers to work with digital technologies. Anything contrary, he submits, will mean that the majority of African workers will be relegated to the bottom of the technology and education chain.

    ‘’Businesses and owners of capital are employing robots, machines and computers to replace workers in order to maximise profits and lower wages or even deny paying all together. Whatever forms of industrialisation, first or fourth industrial revolution, there must be decent, sustainable jobs for the workers, with job security, living wages and living pensions. All unions  should have  audit of  effects of the 4th Industrial revolution, of all workers,’’ Aremu said, adding that there should be education and re-training for the workers.

    He said should it arise that employers will disengage staff,  unions are not helpless if they are willing to engage with  governments and businesses. He cited a case in South Africa where the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) engaged Volkswagen body shop that introduced more than 200 robots in the year 2016/17.

    He said: “Management undertook skills audit of current artisans in the car body shop with management claiming that the skills of more than 40 artisans did not match the needs of the highly automated body shop. They claimed that the new body shop required electricians which the artisans did not have the electrical skills.

    “NUMSA disagreed with the retrenchment and took the matter to Commission for Conciliation,Mediation and Abitration (CCMA) for facilitation and after lengthy negotiations an agreement was reached.  All those electricians are now being re-trained on electrical skills so that they can be trade tested, this means two things; that their jobs are safe and they will also get a second trade.”

    Other solutions according to him are that: “Workers should not be left behind because of a lack of education and training. They should be educated for the jobs of the future’’.

    NUMSA President,  Christine Olivier said aside re-skilling of workers, collective agreements that are in place should be defended.

    She said: “ A list of future skills for future work should be developed and we need to know and do things that machines cannot do well. We have to define how we can work with these machines – Human machine partnership.

    “ Defending and improvement of workers’ remuneration, benefits and  working conditions with job security and other workers’ rights  preserved and expand the number of jobs and Union capacity should strengthen”.

    For Bakole, he proposed  that labour unions should engage continually with their members on matters that will make employees fir for purpose.

    By this, he said Labour unions need to increase the knowledge base of their members through training and retraining as well as by organizing educative forums such as this policy round-table.

    Furthermore, trade unions need to encourage their members to obtain higher degrees and /or acquire mores skills and techniques that will keep them relevant at all times, he asserted.

  • Fed Govt may stop MDAs salaries over payroll system default

    The Federal Government has threatened to stop the salaries of some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) or individual employees if they fail to comply with the Human Resource Module of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

    The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF), Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita issued a circular condemning failure of affected departments to update their records despite an earlier circular that required them to.

    “In addition, many MDAs are yet to send their structures for upload and the list of their IPPIS Role Players as per the circular under reference, thereby denying their employee’s access to the Portal for the record update,” the circular said in parts.

    According to her, the online record update is a key requirement for the implementation of the HR Module of IPPIS and must be completed by every employee of the Federal Government for his/her records to be maintained on the IPPIS platform.

    January 19 is deadline for affected MDAs to forward the soft copies of the required information to a specified online address.

    All Federal Government workers have until January 22 to update their records on www.verification.ippis.gov.ng.

    ”Please note that failure of any MDA and/or employee to comply with the content of this circular will lead to stoppage of the salary of the entire MDA and/or employee on the IPPIS platform,” the circular said.

  • Mass killings may scare investors, says NLC  

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has raised the alarm that the frequent serial killings in some states may scare foreign investors from the country if not urgently tackled.

    The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, reacting to the killings around the country, notably in Benue, Nasarawa, Adamawa, Rivers and Taraba states, lamented that these mass murders have continued unabated as if the nation’s  security agencies are helpless.

    Noting that the action could make the outside world to consider Nigeria  unsafe, he maintained that no government can survive the horror of another terrorist group in the country.

    “Mass killing is enough a symptom of terrorism and we can’t afford to have our country classified as a safe haven for terrorist groups as these will scare off the much needed foreign investors,” he said.

    According to him, “these killings have not only threatened security of lives and properties but constituted a major impediment to the much needed growth and development of the country as regular work in both informal and formal sectors of the economy have grimly been hampered while the economy groans.”

  • NULGE takes autonomy battle to state assemblies

    NULGE takes autonomy battle to state assemblies

    The Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has put in place measures to ensure that state assemblies pass the local government autonomy bill, its National Executive Council (NEC) has said.

    At its meeting in Abuja, NULGE resolved to declare a national day of prayers to make the members of houses of assembly support councils’autonomy.

    The association’s  President, Comrade Ibraheem Khaleel, said the union would sustain its advocacy and ensure that the constitution review was achieved.

    Khaleel pointed out that the statement credited to the Speaker of theHouse of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, that the state assemblies should be held responsible, if the proposal failed was very sensitive.

    Khaleel said apart from organising prayers across all the 774 local governments, the association would sensitise state assemblies and councillors to approve local government autonomy.

    He pointed out that since the National Assembly had approved the proposal and transmitted it to the state assemblies, the union would  ensure that the state legislatures approved it.

    On the mass sack of workers in Kaduna State, Comrade Khaleel said the union had agreed to support the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in organising a mass action against the “anti-workers and people policy” of Governor el-Rufai.

    He pointed out that NULGE would organise its members across the country to converge on Kaduna and participate in the protest.

    He said the anti-people policies of the Kaduna State governor and the activities of a cabal surrounding the president had disconnected President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Nigerians.

    The union, which regretted that President Buhari and the APC came to power on the mantra of change, with promises to create employment for Nigerians, said the major political office holders in the government, especially the Kaduna State governor, had done the opposite.

    Specifically, NULGE said the sack of 22, 000 teachers and 4, 000 local government workers in Kaduna  by el-Rufai lacked merit and was against civil service rules.