The Nation Newspaper

Tag: unemployment

  • AU seeks 2% reduction in unemployment yearly

    The African Union Commission (AUC) has appealed to member-states to reduce youths and women unemployment by two per cent yearly.

    AU Commissioner, Labour and Social Affairs, Dr Mustapha Sidiki, made the appeal at the African Development Bank (AfDB), International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Economic commission for Africa (ECA) joint forum on youth employment in Addis Ababa.

    He said: “We should strive to ensure that in the next 50 years all workers, whatever the sectors, have access to decent work, decent income, appropriate social protection regimes, better working and living conditions.

    “We should also strive to fulfil our commitment to reduce youth and women unemployment by two per year, which requires bold steps toward the functioning labour inspection, social protection, dialogue, placement of service, labour market information, policy planning and monitoring and evaluation.”

    Sidiki urged governments of AU member-states and stakeholders to work towards reducing poverty, ensuring social cohesion and inclusive pro-poor growth by focusing on outcomes of growth process that would benefit workers and other members of the society.

    He said: “On the average, more than 70 per cent of the African workforce is engaged in the informal economy and rural sector activities and the labour market does not address the needs of the workers in these sector in terms of social protection, skills development, employment services and workforce management.’’

    He said the challenges applied to the small and medium enterprises, which are poorly covered by the services offered by the labour market institutions, in particular the labour inspection and public employment services.

    “ We need to look beyond the 10 per cent of workers in the modern sector, listen to the majority of the workforce in the informal economy and the rural sector and join efforts in bringing them into the economy to secure decent jobs.’’

    While presenting the Joint Youth Employment Initiative for Africa (JYEIA), Ms Ginette Nzau-Muteta of the African Development Bank, said: “It was being launched on the background of serious and ever worsening unemployment problems for young people in most African countries.“

    Muteta said the programme was a response to the call by AU member-states at the summit in Malabo in July 2011 to tackle youth unemployment in Africa “and is also part of  the follow up to the 2004 Ouagadougou Declaration and Action Plan to the same effect.’’

    The programme, she said, is to increase and improve youth employment in Africa, adding that it would be organised under three components of policy support, implementation support and knowledge for informed action.

    The initiative is part of the AU’s Ninth Ordinary session of the Labour and Social Affair conference.

  • Unemployment: Nigeria sitting on tinderbox – Obasanjo

    Unemployment: Nigeria sitting on tinderbox – Obasanjo

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday decried the soaring rate of unemployment in the country, saying that the situation is capable of consuming Nigeria.

    Obasanjo spoke in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital at a lecture organized by the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI).

    The lecture was entitled: “Managing Agriculture as a Business to Unlock Nigeria’s Agricultural Potentials.”

    His words, “The number of Nigerian universities is going to about 150 now without corresponding job opportunities, we have a problem. The students coming out of the universities do not have hope of getting employment. This means we are sitting on a keg of gun powder. An idle hand is the devil’s workshop. But a hopeless idle hand is tinder box.

    “In Nigeria, the development of agriculture and its ability to become the lifeline of the economy are threatened by the low capacity in agribusiness practitioners to manage their enterprises on a sustainable basis due to cost of finance, inadequate skill, inadequate government support and dumping into Nigeria.

    “This trend can be reversed if agribusiness operators and government will work in close collaboration and partnership, realizing that their collective objective should be food self sufficiency and security, foreign exchange earnings and job creation. For agribusiness to be embraced and upheld, a consistent and predictable policy is needed from government, in addition to clear support in all areas of the value chain.

    “In less than four decades from now, world population is expected to grow to over nine billion, significantly increasing the demand for food and other agricultural products. Some projections show that global food production will need to jump by 70 percent to feed a population of nine billion in 2050.

    “The world Economic Forum recognizes that in order to achieve this, the world will need a new vision for agriculture- delivering food security, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity through agriculture.”

     

  • NLC seeks end to youth unemployment

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is seeking ways out of the growing rate of unemployment, which it put at 60 per cent of employable youths.

    Its President, Abdul Waheed Omar, who spoke with The Nation, said unemployment is Nigeria’s greatest problem.

    He said: “In particular, the crisis of unemployment continues to be the greatest of these. Official statistics puts the unemployment rate at above 24 per cent. As alarming as this would seem, it actually disguises the enormity of the unemployment problem given the huge pool of disguised unemployment and underemployment.

    “The incidence of unemployment among the youth is even more alarming. Though official figures indicate over 40 per cent of them as unemployed, the reality is that about 60 per cent of youths remain unemployed. On average, graduates of the nation’s universities and polytechnics continue to remain unemployed four years after discharge from the mandatory NYSC scheme.

    Other categories of less qualified youths have been roaming the streets in millions without gainful employment. Thus, resigning to a life of perpetual destitution and despondency in a country blessed with so much resources and potential.’’

    Omar traced causes of unemployment to include corruption in the high places. This, according to him, include the fuel subsidy scam through which many influential Nigerians had siphoned much money that could have been used in creating jobs.

    He, therefore, called for the probe and trial of fuel subsidy fraudsters, saying that is the only condition for peace in the industrial sector in the new year.

    It also said the Labour subsidy strike led to the unveiling of many fraudulent subsidy transactions.

    “The government will be unfair to the Nigerians if it fails to expeditiously prosecute those who have stolen so much, and caused so much trauma and death to the people. We hold the view that no one is above the law in any decent society and if our government is committed to the enthronement of good governance and a corrupt-free society, it must get the named beneficiaries of the oil subsidy scam to not only refund all the money they have stolen, but also serve appropriate jail terms. This will be the only acceptable condition for continuous industrial harmony by workers and the Nigerians.”

    The NLC chief said the economy, in 2012, was characterised by many maladies, with dire consequences for workers and other Nigerians.

    It faulted the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth that has not led to job creation.

    “This abysmal economic outlook is prevailing in the face of official aggregate of the economy touted to experience respectable growth. The growth rate of GDP is flaunted to average about 6.5 per cent based on data for the first three quarters of the year. While this is lower than the corresponding rate for 2011, it is way above the global growth rates for comparable national economies.

    “However, our concern about this respectable economic growth is that it does not translate into industrial development and better life for the Nigerian people. The economy continues to experience incessant factory closures, and with no visible industrial policy, has led to continuous informalisation of work and de-industrialisation, unemployment has continued unabated, and hyper-inflationary pressure, which has been most severe in the food, energy and transport sub sectors have impoverished majority of Nigerians.”

     

  • Cleric decries bad roads, unemployment in Ebonyi

    THE Anglican Bishop of Ngbo Diocese in Ebonyi State, Bishop Christian Ebisike, has decried the high poverty level, unemployment among youths, bad roads, epileptic power supply and inadequate water supply in most rural communities in the state.

    Bishop Ebisike spoke at the third session of the first Synod of the church with the theme: Evangelism: the prime obligation.

    The cleric said the level of poverty in the state is high, adding that the government needs to establish industries and create jobs.

    He said: “We have discovered that the level of poverty is high in Ebonyi State. The people, especially the youths, need jobs. There is need to alleviate their poverty through the establishment of industries and creation of jobs. There is inadequacy, if not lack, of good roads, potable water and electricity in many communities.

    “Many industries in the state are moribund. The most annoying is the huge Nkalagu Cement Factory, which is now a monument of ruins. The once pride of the Southeast has become a shadow of its old self with thousands of its workers now living in abject poverty.”

    The bishop noted that though efforts by the Martin Elechi administration to establish another cement factory is commendable, it is better to rehabilitate the old factory for the workers to have a new lease of life.

    Ebisike said the insecurity by the Boko Haram sect and the incessant killings of Igbo in the North could be a ploy to exterminate the ethnic nationality.

    The cleric said the political marginalisation of Igbo has reached an alarming rate.

    According to him, the Nigerian situation is like the sour grape.

    He said: “Instead of growing from grace to glory, our dear country has continued to fester, wallowing in more sleaze, corruption, rising unemployment and insecurity and an unacceptable paradox of filthy wealth in the hands of a careless and selfish minority. This leaves the majority trapped in rising poverty.

    “Not only has corruption gone viral, there was the recent grim revelation of pension fraud at the Federal Public Service and the Police Service Commission; the fuel subsidy scam, running into trillions of naira. Also, there were the capital market probes, where the hunter became the hunted and the N536.15million National Examinations Council (NECO) scam. We recall the lunatic looting of his state’s treasury by former Delta State Governor James Ibori, who was described as “a common thief” abroad but a saint in Nigeria. These cannot but worry a sane mind.”

    The cleric sought solutions to the nation’s myriad woes and severe punishment for criminals without any sacred cows.

    Ebisike said: “It is high time we stopped the free-fall capacity collapse of our system because our children are getting increasingly disillusioned as a result of unemployment and our infrastructure are progressively decaying. The leaders and the led should know that only righteousness can exalt a nation.”

  • The ticking unemployment bomb

    SIR: The high rate of youth unemployment in Nigeria gives serious cause for concern as thousands of graduates leave tertiary institutions with no prospects of getting jobs, year-in-year out.

    The matter is compounded daily as higher institutions churn out fresh graduates to add to the already saturated labour market. Daily, we see our streets littered with young hawkers and teenage female street traders, who are constantly faced with the threat of kidnapping and sexual molestation by depraved adults.

    Many university undergraduates engage in drug trafficking, armed robbery, high class prostitution, political thuggery, okada riding and advance fee fraud, just to survive. The rising tide of unemployment and the resultant fear of a bleak future as the large are capable of undermining the country’s fledgling democracy.

    The Statistician-General of the Federation/CEO of the NBS, Dr. Yemi Kale said the total number of unemployed Nigerians rose from more than 12 million in 2010 to more than 14 million in 2011, with the figure increasing by 1.8 million between December 2010 and June 2011 alone. Kale said that unemployment was highest among youths aged between 15 and 24, and 25 and 44, adding that the problem was more pronounced in the rural areas.

    The unemployment figure for 2012 is given as 39.28 million, which is 23.9 per cent of the estimated 164.38 population of the country. Certainly, the most dangerous of the effects of growing unemployment in the nation is the likelihood of a serious break-out of social unrest and lawlessness by such idle hands.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently warned on the possibility of an “Arab spring” experience in Nigeria if the rate of unemployment is not checked. While I do not pray for such gory experience in the country, one is nevertheless troubled by what we get to read in the media of how our political class indulged in the squandering of public funds.

    The rise in unemployment and misery has been fueled by increased tension caused by the high level of insecurity that had made investors avoid Nigeria like a plague. Just a few days ago, a suicide bomber killed and wounded several people at the St. Rita’s Catholic Church, Ungwan Yero, Malali, Kaduna, sending the wrong signal to the international community that Nigeria is a no-go area. Entrepreneurial development, with focus on the retraining of small investors – such as engaging in the working-for-yourself programmes – are goodstrategies to solving or reducing unemployment.

    There is the need for a mechanism to develop the skills of unemployed graduates while placing successful ones on internship in some companies with the possibility of being retained permanently since skills acquisition and leadership development are critical for nation building, wealth creation and distribution.

    Serious attention must be paid to agriculture and agric-business by all tiers of governments as a tool for employment generation through financial institutions, large scale farmers, small and medium scale farmers, researchers, retailers, distributors and serious investors.

    The nation has, over the years, been mobilizing and sharing revenue from only one source – oil. The time has come for governments to devise ingenious ways of expanding their revenue base by venturing into tourism, industrialization and manufacturing.

    Government should subsidize credits to sectors that are likely to be able to generate employment while tax incentives could be deployed to attract investment in labour-intensive areas.

    The creation of urban employment opportunities should be a priority as one of the goals of the nation’s general economic policy, reflecting the impacts of industrial policy investment.

    There is the need to urgently provide solutions to the mismatch between education outcomes and skills demand, to ensure that the country’s educational system provides the necessary skills required by the labour market.

    The supply of labour for development is dependent on increasing the skills of the youth to improve their employability and productivity. Most of the curricula of institutions of higher learning are out of tune with modern day realities.

     

    • Adewale Kupoluyi

    Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta

  • Unemployment, layoffs down in Singapore

    Unemployment, layoffs down in Singapore

    Unemployment in Singapore declined in the second quarter of this year, reversing the slight increase a quarter ago, according to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
    The ministry attributed the drop in unemployment to more jobs being created in the second quarter, while layoffs eased for the second successive quarter.

    These were the key findings from the “Labour Market, Second Quarter 2012” report released by the Ministry of Manpower’s Research and Statistics Department on Friday.
    Total employment grew by 31,700 in the second quarter, higher than the gains of 24,800 in the same period last year and 27,200 in the first quarter of 2012.

    Cumulatively, employment rose by 58,900 in the first half of 2012, compared with the increase of 53,100 in the corresponding period of 2011.
    Services contributed 17,300 jobs, the majority of employment gains in the second quarter of 2012. But the figure was lower than the same period last year where there was a gain of 19,300 jobs in the services industry.

    For the seventh successive quarter, growth in construction workforce accelerated, supported by public infrastructure projects.
    In manufacturing, employment grew by 4,700, as gains led by petroleum, chemical and pharmaceutical sectors outnumbered the declines in the electronic, computer and optical products sectors.

    MOM said amid the strong employment creation, unemployment declined over the second quarter, after the slight rise in the first quarter.
    The seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate dipped over the quarter by 0.1 per cent point to 2.0 per cent in June, erasing the increase in March.
    The jobless rate for residents and citizens declined by 0.2 per cent point to 2.8 per cent and 3.0 per cent respectively.

  • Summit to address unemployment

    The Conference of the Northern States Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (CONSCCIMA) has said its economic and investment summit in October will address security and employment challenges in the north.

    CONSCIMMA chairman Ahmad Rabin said the conference’s second Economic and Investment Summit coming up on October 15 and 16 in Minna, Niger State.

    Rabin said the conference would adopt measures to revamp the region’s economic base and engage the youths in ventures that would keep them away from social vices.

      He said the summit would also examine the effects of insecurity on the economy of Nigeria and northern Nigeria, specifically, as well as develop a clear and realistic integrated economic revival agenda for northern Nigeria.

      It would advocate for peace as a recipe for economic growth and development, he added.
    Rabin said that the summit would harness the vast experience and resources of people of the region and its various governments for economic rebirth.

    He said the summit would be about rebirth, revival and reinvention of the north as a region and would be tied to the Federal Government’s transformation agenda.

      On the security challenge in the region, the chairman said that the situation was not peculiar to the north as “insecurity is a global phenomenon.”