Two weeks ago, while sitting at the departure lounge of Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos waiting to catch a flight I could not help listening to two Nigerian undergraduates discussing about the country. Initially, I was unconcerned with their discussion as I was engrossed in the book I was reading, but after series of shift of departure time due to “operational reasons” (the catch phrase of Nigerian airlines), I decided to eavesdrop on their conversation and what they were discussing has grave consequences for this great nation. They were concerned about the high rate of unemployment and their chances of getting jobs when they are done with their studies abroad.
I introduced myself and joined the discussion. My fellow panelists are students of University of Westminster and University of Liverpool, both in the United Kingdom. They told me they had to abandon their studies in Nigeria and go abroad because of the incessant strikes in the system; one abandoned his at 300 Level while the other abandoned his at 200 Level. One was honest enough to say he’s not likely to return to Nigeria after his studies, while the other said he is still “studying the situation”. When my flight was finally announced, I spent my entire flight time thinking about the high unemployment rate in the country at 27,000 feet above sea level and came to the conclusion that we are sitting on a time bomb.
If you take a look at the statistics you’d realize we are indeed sitting on a time bomb. Making a presentation to the Senate Committee on Youths and Women Affairs in 2011, Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi, former Minister of Youths and Social Development, now Minister of Sports warned that the 41.6 percent unemployment rate is too high for comfort, drawing allusion that if the Arab Spring was triggered by a 25 percent unemployment rate, 41.6 percent is way too high. Current figure from the Bureau of Statistics puts the current youth unemployment rate at over 60 million Nigerian youths out of a population of 150 million are unemployed. Yet it is baffling that the government does not seem to see anything wrong with this. Which society will be at peace with itself when more than half of its total labour force idles away? It can even be argued that this figure, high as it seems considering the paucity of reliable data in Nigeria, still leave out a high number of unemployed unaccounted for.
The reason is not farfetched, unemployment statistics tend to measure the percentage of the work force that does not have a job, is actually looking for employment, or is available to work. This leaves out a large number of people including those who failed to secure full time employment and have to make do with part time jobs, and several others who have given up their search for jobs, having become despondent and discouraged.
This “despondent and discouraged” group makes up a large percentage of the Nigerian unemployment market. Graduates, many of whom left the universities some as far back as ten years, have lost touch with what currently obtains in the job market, lack the skills for today’s rapidly changing landscape or are deemed too “old” to be employed.
Shouldn’t this serve as a wakeup call? If there is one country in the world that needs as a matter of urgency to get more of its youth off the streets, positively engaged, and in very productive ventures, it is Nigeria. The reasons are quite obvious for all to see. From frustration induced sectarian violence, high rates of political thuggery, kidnappings, armed robbery and other vices, all combined in a conundrum that now threatens the very existence of the country. The danger of having a bourgeoning youth population simply wasting away on a daily basis is scary.
The situation is scarier, with our tertiary institutions churning out graduates at a rate far higher than existing absorbing capacity of the job market. Studies show that young people who were unemployed for a long time will earn less throughout their whole lives. They will be less employable; they won’t have the skills that business needs and are more likely to engage in social unrests as was witnessed across the globe throughout 2011.
With more than 70 percent of the nation’s budget spent on recurrent expenditure, many Nigerians have called for a lean government so that funds can be freed for capital projects, in essence, we cannot rely on government to create employment within its fold. Where it does it is always shrouded in controversy just like that of the Immigration services that led to the compulsory retirement of its head. So in the absence of a vibrant and competitive non-oil private sector, efforts by government to jump-start jobs creation may not have the desired impact.
The umbrella body of manufacturers, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) in a 2011 survey of 300 companies found out that, 2,752,832 people were employed by 300 companies in 2005, the number declined to 1,043,982 in 2005 and further to 1,026,305 in 2008. Similarly, manufacturing capacity utilization shrank from 70.1 percent in 1980 to 29.29 percent in 1985 and is less than 30 percent now, all these with their attendant job losses.
There is no let up as more companies are employing different cost-cutting measures, popular among which is retrenchment. The continuous downsizing in the banking sector that has led to thousands of job losses is an example. The conclusion; another potential employment generation sector has shut down.
I’m concerned about this because youth unemployment is potentially dangerous as it threatens the sustainability of any nation’s economy and sends disturbing signal to the global environment. The implications of youth unemployment are social, economic and political and as such ignoring the roles played by the youth in the society amounts to threatening the very survival of the country. Many often wonder why the challenges of youth unemployment in a developing country like Nigeria have become so persistent.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) employment report 2012 offers answer to this question and explained that preceding the global economic crisis, most developing countries saw solid growth rates and economic reforms that were successful in some areas. According to the global labour body, the growth did not translate into sufficient job creation, and the jobs that were created were often of low productivity, which did not provide a realistic option for the increasing share of well-educated young people in the labour force. It maintained that in most sub-Saharan Africa countries the quality of employment is a more important issue than the quantity (the lack of employment altogether).
Though the Federal Government claimed to have put in place measures to address the challenges of youth unemployment in the country, it has however not been able to go beyond rhetoric to tackle decisively the situation as government is yet to give topmost priority attention to jobs creation. Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, assured that the federal government has put in place policy measures to address the increasing unemployment situation in the country. He is referring to the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWIN) which is targeted at creating job, for about 110,000 entrepreneurs in the next 4 years.
How this will work with our real sector in tatters still leaves much to be desired. Meanwhile, the politics and rhetoric of job creation continues while generations of our best and brightest wastes away because of lack of a clear cut blueprint or roadmap on youth empowerment.
