The Nation Newspaper

Tag: unemployment

  • The unemployment time bomb

    SIR: If the immigration recruitment in 2014 and its attendant tragedy was a bad food with sour taste, the ongoing police recruitment has so far proved to be a wrong recipe that may end up as food poisoning if appropriate caution is not taken immediately and effectively.

    The reality of unemployment has reverberated in recent recruitment exercises by various agencies of the federal government. Over 300,000 applicants indicated interest for 3000 vacancies in the Navy.  The police website crashed less than 24 hours due to heavy traffic of applicants. Within three weeks, over 550,000 applicants had indicated interest for 10,000 available spaces in the Nigerian police, with three weeks left.

    Although unemployment is a global phenomenon, the Nigerian situation is a pandemic that calls for urgent attention. Every year our universities continue to churn out graduates (both employable and unemployable) into already saturated labour market. School leavers and drop-outs throng the streets in search for daily living.  In a bid to weather the storm in the ailing economy, companies are forced to retrench and downsize, hence, workers that were once gainfully employed have been thrown back into the labour market in search for jobs that are not available. The menace of unemployment keeps staring us in the face as a nation. It has become a vigorous threat to our corporate existence, as well as our growth and development as a people, yet we seem to dodge the reality of its consequences.

    Boko Haram was able to thrive because many of those recruited saw the financial inducement as a solution to their financial incapacity. Social miscreants and touts have become a profession for some in a land where social security is non-existent. Thuggery has become a means of survival for idle hands that end up as tools in the hands of devious politicians. Others in similar hopeless state have found a quiet haven in armed robbery and kidnapping, thereby becoming endangered species to a large proportion of the society.

    The parallel lines of existing vacancies and applicants continue to grow at unequal distances and they may never meet until a state of emergency is declared on unemployment. And this state of affairs has created another jamboree for recruiting agencies who continue to smile to the bank at the peril of hapless jobseekers, knowing that the Nigerian system is a feasting ground for such inanities as witnessed during the controversial immigration recruitment exercise in March 2014. The sham that characterizes recruitment exercises in our land is one that leaves sour grape in the mouth. The gullibility of the unsuspecting public, the desperation of job-seekers, and the deceit and incompetence of recruiting firms are dire consequences of the failure of the Nigerian state.

    Successive governments have not shown the political will to establish new industries that would employ the army of unemployed graduates whose potentials continue to waste away in the bin of hope that may never surface. Epileptic power supply, the recurring fuel scarcity and collapsed state of social and physical infrastructure is a deterrent on the path of small scale enterprise and aspiring entrepreneurs. It is a sad reality that unemployment will continue to thrive in Nigeria for as long as the government continues to take power supply with kid gloves. More companies are changing their direction to neighbouring countries in order to avoid operating at a loss. Although Nigerians now pay higher tariff for power, the supply is not anything near celebrating. Expectation are so high that the ‘super minister’ in charge of power, cannot afford to let down Nigerians, especially the youths who daily bemoan the hardship of a country with wings but cannot fly, and of scarcity in the midst of plenty.

    As Nigerian population increases, so will crime rate and other social vices. It is wise therefore to give the youths a job before they get a job that will not only inflict pain and distress, but also give the society sleepless nights; for an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. The sooner the present administration puts the horse before the cart and tackles this hydra-headed monster, the earlier it would prevent another insurgent or militant group. Otherwise, this ticking time bomb may have been calculated to bring self-destruct on the snoring giant of Africa.

     

    • Yinka Adeosun,

    Ondo, Ondo State.

  • Unemployment is Nigeria’s biggest challenge – AUN President

    Unemployment is Nigeria’s biggest challenge – AUN President

    High rate of unemployment among the youth is Nigeria’s biggest challenge, the President, American University of Nigeria (AUN), Dr. Margee Ensign, said at the weekend.

    She noted that with the increase in the size of the country’s population, Nigeria would find it difficult to provide jobs for over 200 million young people who will live in it by 2045.

    Dr. Ensign, who said this in Abuja at the ninth Annual Alumni Career Fair for students of the institution, advised the Federal Government to train its citizens on how to create jobs in order to overcome unemployment challenges.

    She said: “You are growing so rapidly. You are doubling every 26 years. Your biggest challenge in Nigeria is to create employment for the 200 million young people who will live in your country by 2045.

    “You have 100 million right now. How many are out of work? Our job is not only to train them to find jobs but to create companies that are creating employment. That is what they do in the school of business and entrepreneurship.

    “We have got a bunch of kids who are only a year ago out of school are here hiring our students. That is what has to happen in Nigeria. It is a big national challenge to have over 70 million out of jobs in Nigeria.”

    Ensign said that the focus of AUN is to give students education that enables them to find and create jobs.

    “It is really important at AUN we give them the education that gives them the knowledge, skills and even the attitude that they need find jobs and then create employment.

    “AUN is a development university and it is probably pretty abstract to you guys. Every students at AUN is in a class that exposes them to the hardest problem your country is facing, whether it is poor health, illiteracy, they have to go out to the community.

    “Our students live in a different world than we live in, many of the jobs that they are going to have we don’t even know the name yet. To me it is not just important to look for employment; it is starting your own,” Dr. Ensign said.

    Earlier, the Dean, School of Law of the university, Professor Oladejo Olowu, told journalists that the institution had concluded plans to establish a gender law programme that would educate students as well as Nigerians on gender-based legal issues.

    The University, which is the first to introduce the course, plans to produce lawyers that study gender law.

    Olowu said that the new course would help to educate Nigerians on the need to confront the orthodoxies and conservative ideas that had held the society for long.

    “The Programme is coming as a means of correcting the abnormalities of the past in the gender differences and the scandal towards the gender bill by Nigerian lawmakers,” he said.

    “In this country, you only hear lawyers speaking about gender equality, but no lawyer in Nigeria went through a law programme that has gender law as component. That is why we have to start the programme in August, with 100 students.

    “I want to say that there is something else we are doing that is extraordinary. You know that developments in this country are left for economists, development theorists and policy analysts.  It has never been a subject for law schools in Nigeria. For the first time in this country, a law programme is having law society and development as a module. That is something worthy of celebrating.

    “What we are doing at AUN, Yola is to correct the abnormalities of the past and fill the missing gap. The good thing about the leadership we have is that we were all taught and groomed in the Nigerian legal system. We went abroad and acquired comparative benefits in the study and applications of law, which is what we have brought together in a form of multicultural ideas.

    “And that is why we have been able to do things that have never been heard of in Nigeria. Even National Universities Commission agrees that we are doing something that is groundbreaking,” he added

     

  • Unemployment: BoI’s ‘YES’ project raises youth’s hope

    Unemployment: BoI’s ‘YES’ project raises youth’s hope

    As part of measures to tackle unemployment, the Bank of Industry (BoI) has unfolded a N10 billion Youth Entrepreneurship Support (YES) programme. It is expected to create 36,000 jobs yearly. TOBA AGBOOLA reports.

    Unemployment, arguably, is one of the most critical socio-economic problems  facing Nigeria. According to the latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), about 1,972,722 Nigerians have been unemployed since June last year. The Federal Government, however, appears determined to tackle the problem.

    Through the Bank of Industry (BOI), the government has launched the N10 billion Youth Entrepreneurship Support (YES) programme. The scheme is expected to produce at least 36,000 direct and indirect jobs annually, with each beneficiary getting between N5 million to N10 million loan at nine per cent interest rate with a tenure of five to 10 years.

    At the launch of the programme in Abuja, the Acting Managing Director of BOI, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, said the programme aimed at equipping youths to become self-employed by starting and managing their own businesses and eventually becoming employers of labour. While noting that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are the bedrock of any economy, he said there is need to develop the capacity of the youths with a view to ultimately fund their business plans.

    Olagunju said while previous empowerment programmes for the youths concentrated more on training, the YES project will provide funds for the beneficiaries. According to him, it is a critical success factor in the establishment of small businesses. “The capacity building programmes also hardly take care of the entire training value chain. The YES scheme that is being launched today would therefore, provide an opportunity for BOI to address the worrisome phenomenon of lack of finance,” he said.

    Olagunju highlighted some of the bold steps taken by the Bank in recent times to address some of the developmental challenges facing the country. The most recent, he said, was the merit-based N2 billion financial inclusion scheme for youths known as the Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund (GEF). The GEF, launched by the Bank in October 2015 in partnership with the National Youth Corps Directorate, is the precursor to YES.

    “GEF is targeted at serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The programme is an innovative approach aimed at tackling the social malaise of graduate unemployment. The strategy was to identify the innate talents of the young graduates as soon as they leave school, build their capacities for self-reliance and also empower them to establish their own businesses;  thereby creating jobs not just for themselves, but for other youths that they may employ. Indirect jobs would also be created as a result of ventures promoted under GEF,” the BoI boss explained.

    Explaining further, he said the programme entailed an online business ideas competition in which 3,100 serving members of the NYSC made their submissions out of which 1,000  top scorers emerged. The successful candidates, he said, underwent entrepreneurship capacity building programmes in seven locations in the six geopolitical zones of the country, including the special centre in Lagos, to facilitate access to finance for their business plans.

    The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr, Okechukwu Enelema, said government will continue to grasp with the sharp decline in revenue from crude oil, which has been the main stay of the economy. He, however, said the nation should not be unmindful of the opportunity the situation presents.

    “It is very important we look inwards in this period and look at ways of exploiting the entrepreneurial spirit and the zeal of  our people. The intense energy of our large youthful population is a strength that we need to exploit by re-orientating them towards positive engagement in entrepreneurship. The nation’s unemployment rate has assumed a worrisome level in view of its implication for national development and competitiveness,” the minister said.

    Speaking with The Nation, one of the beneficiaries of the first phase of the scheme, Mr. Vincent Chinedu, said with the introduction of the portal, it will be easy for anybody to apply unlike before when it was difficult. He said it was not easy when he initially started because of the stringent collateral. He, however, said BOI has relaxed the condition, adding that this will encourage and help others to apply for the loan.

    Chinedu said he graduated as a Chemical Engineer in 2012/2013 and instead of looking for job, he applied for the loan with his NYSC certificate. With the presentation of two guarantors, he said he was given the loan. Today, he is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nedhills Industries. “We are into palm kernel oil production and I have five people working for me at the moment. I am planning to employ more people because we are expanding,” he said.

  • Unemployment: ‘Nigeria needs cooperative lending model’

    The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) Director-General, Bature Masari, has said until every Nigerian, particularly,  the army of unemployed graduates, are self- employed, the nation is sitting on a time bomb.

    Speaking with reporters in an interview at the weekend in Kaduna, Masari said the situation was equal to a time bomb if the government did not encourage and promote self-employment mechanisms through small and medium enterprises engagement.

    To this end, he called for the adoption of the cooperative lending model as practised in other countries, such as Taiwan and Bangladesh, for lending to small businesses to address lack of collateral.

    He also called for the establishment of a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) bank.

    Masari said the bank was necessary to provide a dedicated and sustainable funding window for the development of the MSMEs sub-sector towards economic empowerment and job creation.

    “These measures will go a long way in checking the problem of lack of access to fund that is hampering the growth and development of the country’s MSMEs sub-sector. There is no doubt that a well structured MSMEs sub-sector can contribute significantly to employment generation, wealth creation and development in Nigeria,” he said.

    Masari argued that the economic realities facing the country, caused by declining crude oil prices, the foreign exchange crisis and significant capital outflows required a fundamental diversification of the economy.

    “Therefore, a new impetus must be generated to expand the operational horizon of MSMEs in Nigeria towards achieving this objective,” he said.

    He pointed out that if government and other relevant agencies had made loan easily accessible for the people to go into small businesses, there would be little or no cases of Boko Haram, kidnapping and other social vices across the country.

    The SMEDAN boss, however, said with the opening up of offices for the agency in the 36 states, there would be less interest in white collar jobs by unemployed youths because the agency would assist to facilitate and monitor loans acquired by every beneficiary either from Bank of Industry (BoI) or Bank of Agriculture (BoA).

  • BoI set to reduce unemployment

    BoI set to reduce unemployment

    The Bank of Industry (BOI) is poise to reduce the level of unemployment, the  Acting Managing Director Waheed Olagunju has said.

    He said part of the strategies to achieve the goal would be to give grants to viable business ideas that will stimulate growth, noting this was part of the reasons it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)  with 11 training institutes.

    Under a new programme, Youth  Entrepreneurship Support (YES), youths between the ages of 18 and 35 would be supported with grants from a limitless pool of funds to start their businesses.

    He said the need to provide jobs for the youth was the reason for the programme that would be commodity-based industrialisation.

    Areas of comparative advantage, such as agricultural, solid minerals, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and the creative industries, would be focused on.

    On why the scheme did not have a financial ceiling, he said: “For every billion naira spent by BoI, 4000 jobs can be created; value addition is the key. We spent N2million for GEF which is the pilot programme, but for this, all funds at our disposal will be made available as we have the backings of our stakeholders to deepen our service delivery.”

    “We now have an Executive Director for MSME’s which shows government’s  renewed efforts to grow the economy through MSME’s as we realised supporting them will provide more jobs to Nigerians unlike the big chain enterprises that employ less”.

    He said the YES scheme was a BOI initiative designed to address youth unemployment in Nigeria by building the capacity of youths by equipping them with the requisite entrepreneurial knowledge and skills,as well as funding their business plans, which would enable them to be self-employed and manage their own businesses as “participants must have a minimum educational qualification of an Ordinary National Diploma (OND) or its equivalent”.

  • Unemployment: Senate to probe collapsed industries

    Unemployment: Senate to probe collapsed industries

    The Senate yesterday mandated its Committees on Industries, Privatisation and National Planning to take inventory of closed industries to establish why they collapsed.

    The upper chamber asked the joint committee to proffer solution on how to revive the collapsed industries and report to it on time.

    This followed a motion by Senator Barau Jibrin (Kano North) and 61 others.

    The motion: “The need to urgently seek the resuscitation of collapsed and ailing industries as well as the establishment of new ones to rejuvenate the economy”

    The Senate resolved that the legislative and executive arms should set up a joint consultative committee with a mandate to contact and woo foreign manufacturers to establish Nigerian branches of their factories in the country.

    It urged the Federal Government to devise ways and means by which it can persuade high-worth Nigerians to establish factories rather than continuing with their dependence on importation of foreign goods.

    Senator Jibrin, in his lead debate, urged the Senate to note that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration pledged to change the country positively to bring succour to Nigerians.

    Senator Ben Bruce Murray, who seconded the motion, said the country must come up with a 20-year economic plan, do away with inconsistency in policies and devote money and time to  research.

    Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, also supporting the motion, said this was a patriotic call for action to revive ailing industries.

    Omo-Agege also stressed the need for a comprehensive investigation into the reasons for such collapse.

     

  • Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that no fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless, while 1.8 million graduates enter the labour market every year. This figure could be a conservative estimate of the actual number of unemployed youths in the country, going by previous statistics released by NBS, which put the number of jobless Nigerians at 20.3 million.

    The above is a reflection of previous governments’ inability to design policies that will create more jobs, or provide enabling environment that could encourage both individuals and the private sector to expand employment opportunities without let or hindrance.

    It is in line with the above that the Osun State Government established an office known as Osun Job Centre. This is in pursuance of a key component of Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola-led administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan which is banishment of unemployment from the state. The Job Centre is established as a State Government-funded one-stop employment agency with desk offices located at each of the 30 local government areas.

    The Centre will act as a facilitator between job seekers and employers by providing employment information and services to a wide range of people, from the unemployed looking for employment, the underemployed looking for better jobs, to employers advertising job openings. It is aimed at eradicating barriers to employment by promoting education, training and business enterprise. It will contribute to the personal development of the labour force through the creation of opportunities for their productive engagement and utilisation.

    The centre provides employment service tools such as an infrastructure for the business community to post its skills needs as well as in-house computers with free access to the internet.

    To provide a venue where job seekers can meet and network with representatives of prospective employers from diverse sectors of the economic with the possibility of securing employment.

    However, the private sector also has a role to play in creating employment, as experience has shown that government alone cannot provide all the needed jobs.  Unemployed persons will also have to start working towards self-employment, through which they may even provide jobs for others.

    Unemployment and poverty have become serious problems that all levels of government must tackle with sincerity of purpose to keep the nation’s youths productively engaged and out of avoidable trouble.

    These efforts by Osun government are worthy of emulation by other states of the federation. Governor Aregbesola once declared that Osun, out of the 36 states, has the lowest rate of unemployed people, particularly among her teeming youths, due to the determination of his administration to banish poverty and unemployment among its people.

    This new move at establishing a job centre is just one of them. These efforts were recently corroborated by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, when he declared that Osun is one of the states with lowest in poverty.

    “The indication (in Osun) is that because there is a lot of investment on the people, poverty has been reduced and that is what we (the Federal Government) are trying to achieve in Nigeria,” Osinbajo said.

    Aregbesola was quoted as saying: “The development of micro and small businesses forms a core component of our poverty alleviation and economic empowerment strategy.

    “This is part of our six-point integral action plan that, among others, seeks to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger.

    “We have designed programmes aimed at unlocking our people’s creativity and genuinely set them on the path of self-employment and self-reliance.

    “I am certain that our people are hard-working and would at all time take pride in working to earn a decent living.

    “With the numerous programmes we are implementing, we are on the road to change the fortune of our state and lives of our people for better.

    “Many of these programmes such as OYES, O’REAP, O’YESTECH, O’MEALs, O’Schools, O’Beef and O’BOPS, among others, have offered many of our youths self-reliant job opportunities.”

    • Ayo Akinola, is a publisher and media consultant based in Lagos and Bola Akande is a former commissioner for Human Resources and Capacity Building, Osun State

     

  • Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that no fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless, while 1.8 million graduates enter the labour market every year. This figure could be a conservative estimate of the actual number of unemployed youths in the country, going by previous statistics released by NBS, which put the number of jobless Nigerians at 20.3 million.

    The above is a reflection of previous governments’ inability to design policies that will create more jobs, or provide enabling environment that could encourage both individuals and the private sector to expand employment opportunities without let or hindrance.

    It is in line with the above that the Osun State Government established an office known as Osun Job Centre. This is in pursuance of a key component of Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola-led administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan which is banishment of unemployment from the state. The Job Centre is established as a State Government-funded one-stop employment agency with desk offices located at each of the 30 local government areas.

    The Centre will act as a facilitator between job seekers and employers by providing employment information and services to a wide range of people, from the unemployed looking for employment, the underemployed looking for better jobs, to employers advertising job openings. It is aimed at eradicating barriers to employment by promoting education, training and business enterprise. It will contribute to the personal development of the labour force through the creation of opportunities for their productive engagement and utilisation.

    The centre provides employment service tools such as an infrastructure for the business community to post its skills needs as well as in-house computers with free access to the internet.

    To provide a venue where job seekers can meet and network with representatives of prospective employers from diverse sectors of the economic with the possibility of securing employment.

    However, the private sector also has a role to play in creating employment, as experience has shown that government alone cannot provide all the needed jobs.  Unemployed persons will also have to start working towards self-employment, through which they may even provide jobs for others.

    Unemployment and poverty have become serious problems that all levels of government must tackle with sincerity of purpose to keep the nation’s youths productively engaged and out of avoidable trouble.

    These efforts by Osun government are worthy of emulation by other states of the federation. Governor Aregbesola once declared that Osun, out of the 36 states, has the lowest rate of unemployed people, particularly among her teeming youths, due to the determination of his administration to banish poverty and unemployment among its people.

    This new move at establishing a job centre is just one of them. These efforts were recently corroborated by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, when he declared that Osun is one of the states with lowest in poverty.

    “The indication (in Osun) is that because there is a lot of investment on the people, poverty has been reduced and that is what we (the Federal Government) are trying to achieve in Nigeria,” Osinbajo said.

    Aregbesola was quoted as saying: “The development of micro and small businesses forms a core component of our poverty alleviation and economic empowerment strategy.

    “This is part of our six-point integral action plan that, among others, seeks to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger.

    “We have designed programmes aimed at unlocking our people’s creativity and genuinely set them on the path of self-employment and self-reliance.

    “I am certain that our people are hard-working and would at all time take pride in working to earn a decent living.

    “With the numerous programmes we are implementing, we are on the road to change the fortune of our state and lives of our people for better.

    “Many of these programmes such as OYES, O’REAP, O’YESTECH, O’MEALs, O’Schools, O’Beef and O’BOPS, among others, have offered many of our youths self-reliant job opportunities.”

    • Ayo Akinola, is a publisher and media consultant based in Lagos and Bola Akande is a former commissioner for Human Resources and Capacity Building, Osun State

     

  • Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that no fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless, while 1.8 million graduates enter the labour market every year. This figure could be a conservative estimate of the actual number of unemployed youths in the country, going by previous statistics released by NBS, which put the number of jobless Nigerians at 20.3 million.

    The above is a reflection of previous governments’ inability to design policies that will create more jobs, or provide enabling environment that could encourage both individuals and the private sector to expand employment opportunities without let or hindrance.

    It is in line with the above that the Osun State Government established an office known as Osun Job Centre. This is in pursuance of a key component of Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola-led administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan which is banishment of unemployment from the state. The Job Centre is established as a State Government-funded one-stop employment agency with desk offices located at each of the 30 local government areas.

    The Centre will act as a facilitator between job seekers and employers by providing employment information and services to a wide range of people, from the unemployed looking for employment, the underemployed looking for better jobs, to employers advertising job openings. It is aimed at eradicating barriers to employment by promoting education, training and business enterprise. It will contribute to the personal development of the labour force through the creation of opportunities for their productive engagement and utilisation.

    The centre provides employment service tools such as an infrastructure for the business community to post its skills needs as well as in-house computers with free access to the internet.

    To provide a venue where job seekers can meet and network with representatives of prospective employers from diverse sectors of the economic with the possibility of securing employment.

    However, the private sector also has a role to play in creating employment, as experience has shown that government alone cannot provide all the needed jobs.  Unemployed persons will also have to start working towards self-employment, through which they may even provide jobs for others.

    Unemployment and poverty have become serious problems that all levels of government must tackle with sincerity of purpose to keep the nation’s youths productively engaged and out of avoidable trouble.

    These efforts by Osun government are worthy of emulation by other states of the federation. Governor Aregbesola once declared that Osun, out of the 36 states, has the lowest rate of unemployed people, particularly among her teeming youths, due to the determination of his administration to banish poverty and unemployment among its people.

    This new move at establishing a job centre is just one of them. These efforts were recently corroborated by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, when he declared that Osun is one of the states with lowest in poverty.

    “The indication (in Osun) is that because there is a lot of investment on the people, poverty has been reduced and that is what we (the Federal Government) are trying to achieve in Nigeria,” Osinbajo said.

    Aregbesola was quoted as saying: “The development of micro and small businesses forms a core component of our poverty alleviation and economic empowerment strategy.

    “This is part of our six-point integral action plan that, among others, seeks to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger.

    “We have designed programmes aimed at unlocking our people’s creativity and genuinely set them on the path of self-employment and self-reliance.

    “I am certain that our people are hard-working and would at all time take pride in working to earn a decent living.

    “With the numerous programmes we are implementing, we are on the road to change the fortune of our state and lives of our people for better.

    “Many of these programmes such as OYES, O’REAP, O’YESTECH, O’MEALs, O’Schools, O’Beef and O’BOPS, among others, have offered many of our youths self-reliant job opportunities.”

    • Ayo Akinola, is a publisher and media consultant based in Lagos and Bola Akande is a former commissioner for Human Resources and Capacity Building, Osun State

     

  • Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that no fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless, while 1.8 million graduates enter the labour market every year. This figure could be a conservative estimate of the actual number of unemployed youths in the country, going by previous statistics released by NBS, which put the number of jobless Nigerians at 20.3 million.

    The above is a reflection of previous governments’ inability to design policies that will create more jobs, or provide enabling environment that could encourage both individuals and the private sector to expand employment opportunities without let or hindrance.

    It is in line with the above that the Osun State Government established an office known as Osun Job Centre. This is in pursuance of a key component of Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola-led administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan which is banishment of unemployment from the state. The Job Centre is established as a State Government-funded one-stop employment agency with desk offices located at each of the 30 local government areas.

    The Centre will act as a facilitator between job seekers and employers by providing employment information and services to a wide range of people, from the unemployed looking for employment, the underemployed looking for better jobs, to employers advertising job openings. It is aimed at eradicating barriers to employment by promoting education, training and business enterprise. It will contribute to the personal development of the labour force through the creation of opportunities for their productive engagement and utilisation.

    The centre provides employment service tools such as an infrastructure for the business community to post its skills needs as well as in-house computers with free access to the internet.

    To provide a venue where job seekers can meet and network with representatives of prospective employers from diverse sectors of the economic with the possibility of securing employment.

    However, the private sector also has a role to play in creating employment, as experience has shown that government alone cannot provide all the needed jobs.  Unemployed persons will also have to start working towards self-employment, through which they may even provide jobs for others.

    Unemployment and poverty have become serious problems that all levels of government must tackle with sincerity of purpose to keep the nation’s youths productively engaged and out of avoidable trouble.

    These efforts by Osun government are worthy of emulation by other states of the federation. Governor Aregbesola once declared that Osun, out of the 36 states, has the lowest rate of unemployed people, particularly among her teeming youths, due to the determination of his administration to banish poverty and unemployment among its people.

    This new move at establishing a job centre is just one of them. These efforts were recently corroborated by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, when he declared that Osun is one of the states with lowest in poverty.

    “The indication (in Osun) is that because there is a lot of investment on the people, poverty has been reduced and that is what we (the Federal Government) are trying to achieve in Nigeria,” Osinbajo said.

    Aregbesola was quoted as saying: “The development of micro and small businesses forms a core component of our poverty alleviation and economic empowerment strategy.

    “This is part of our six-point integral action plan that, among others, seeks to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger.

    “We have designed programmes aimed at unlocking our people’s creativity and genuinely set them on the path of self-employment and self-reliance.

    “I am certain that our people are hard-working and would at all time take pride in working to earn a decent living.

    “With the numerous programmes we are implementing, we are on the road to change the fortune of our state and lives of our people for better.

    “Many of these programmes, like OYES, O’REAP, O’YESTECH, O’MEALs, O’Schools, O’Beef and O’BOPS, among others, have offered many of our youths self-reliant job opportunities and I want to assure you all that we have only just begun. A lot more good things are still coming.”

     

    • Ayo Akinola, arpa, is a publisher and media consultant based in Lagos and Bola Akande is a former commissioner for Human Resources and Capacity Building, Osun State