Projections that the country’s unemployment rate would hit 37 per cent in 2023, while the country’s poverty headcount would also rise to 45 per cent are certainly worrisome. The projections emerged from the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) in its 2023 Macroeconomic Outlook report. It is unfortunate that the majority of Nigerian graduates are unable to secure jobs after graduation from tertiary institutions, leading to a negative shift in thinking about the need for acquiring tertiary education.
Although Nigeria’s statistics agency, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last month reported the country’s unemployment rate as 4.1 per cent, the lowest in many years, analysts believe the unemployment statistics with the updated methodology do not reflect the true number of jobless people in Africa’s most populous country, where many have lost their jobs as a result of surging inflation and where the government has struggled to create enough jobs.
The National Bureau of Statistics now classifies the employed in Nigeria as those working for at least one hour a week, as against the 20-hour-a-week parameter it had been using. In its new labour force report, the bureau said about three in four working-age Nigerians aged at least 15 were employed in the first quarter of 2023.
With the rising rate of unemployment across the country, many young Nigerians are heeding the wrong narrative about the relevance of education. It has become a catchy phrase in some circles that ‘education is a scam.’ In particular because many young people, especially the Generation Z, have witnessed struggles of older graduates in securing jobs; and are disgusted and disenchanted. To many of them, education, which is often touted as the pathway to success, is now a time-wasting effort that no longer proves crucial as an edge in securing jobs, as millions of graduates chase after a few thousand jobs in a country where job racketeering, favouritism, and cronyism largely play a big role in employment.
This sad commentary is a reality, not a mystery! Indeed, unemployment projections of agencies, including that of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), are grim and unsettling. The NBS had recorded an increase in the national unemployment rate from 23.1 per cent in 2018 to 33.3 per cent in 2020, with youth unemployment of 42.5 per cent and youth underemployment of 21 per cent.
Similarly, a multinational consulting audit and tax advisory firm, KPMG, in a new report tagged: “KPMG Global Economy Outlook report, H1 2023,” stated that the Nigerian unemployment rate had increased to 37.7 per cent in 2022 and would further rise to 40.6 per cent, due to the continuing inflow of job seekers into the saturated job market. The report also said that in 2024, the unemployment rate would grow to 43 per cent.
Again, the President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, underscored this at a lecture in Lagos, last year. In his lecture titled: ‘Nigeria – A Country of Many Nations: A Quest for National Integration,’ Adesina highlighted the high rate of joblessness among Nigerians, saying about 40 per cent of youths are unemployed. This magnitude of unemployment, especially among the youths, is alarming.
But the reasons are not far-fetched because in a country where infrastructure is grossly inadequate, government policy flip-flops meet official bureaucracies to kill businesses, hostile investment climate continues to shrink the real sector, and there is general business depression in the private sector. And as population spirals, neglect of the agricultural sector, rural-urban migration drift, ethnicity, corruption, and dysfunctional educational system created an army of unemployable graduate youths.
Industrialisation is synonymous with job creation in contemporary societies; available statistics show that since 1995, about 150 multinational industries have divested from the Nigerian economy. The long list includes: Michelin, Dunlop, Pfizer, Leventis, Glaxo Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline), Hoechst, and Procter and Gamble. Many more are considering pulling out of Nigeria, and are on the queue of the “runway” emigrating firms in readiness for take-off to neighbouring West African countries because they could no longer bear the loss to business from the continued deplorable state of basic infrastructure, especially poor road network and electricity supply; inadequate physical security; corruption; weak enforcement of contracts; and attendant high cost of operation in the country.
Clearly, the Nigerian business environment is toxic for both new and old investments, and the proper place to start fixing the problem. Reversing the rising unemployment and under employment in Nigeria should warrant a national emergency using multi-pronged dynamic and innovative approaches –fixing the broken business environment by creating enabling environment through policies; investment in infrastructure to promote industrialisation, which is synonymous with job creation; promoting agriculture; and focusing on contemporary relevant education.
So, what is needed now is not government stating and restating commitments towards job creation as was recently done by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, who restated President Bola Tinubu’s commitment towards creating 10 million jobs through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation; it is high time Nigeria comprehensively reviewed the challenges and prospects of sustainable solution across all tiers of government.
Beyond the existential crisis and some social intervention initiatives, Nigeria, more than ever, needs a workable plan to fix the broken business environment in order to tackle rising unemployment and the attendant problems of hunger and poverty.
The government should concern itself with the promotion of policies and institutions that can improve opportunities and capabilities for Nigerians, while reducing vulnerabilities. Hence, the need for a coherent strategy that will lead to synergy between job growth and economics.
Reviving the agricultural sector, which is manifest in the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme of the present government, where the Central Bank of Nigeria has set aside N40 billion for farmers at single-digit interest rate of nine per cent, is commendable. However, some of the jobs did not result in enough income to lift even the employed persons out of poverty. Some of the states with the largest employment in agriculture also happen to be the states with the highest poverty rates, as many of the people who are employed in the agric sector are still living in poverty despite their employment. It is also important that the government provides grazing reserves and ranches for herdsmen because crop farming cannot take place in a state of insecurity.
On education, there should be focus on contemporary relevant education for graduates to knowledgably fit into job vacancies. While more skills alone will not necessarily solve the unemployment challenge, there must be opportunity-specific skills certification and recertification for everyone to find a place in the scheme of things.
Nigeria should re-organise technical and non-academic learning. As such, school curricula must be revised for technical and entrepreneurial skills, for the graduates to get the necessary skills for jobs and self-employment in the 21st century.
The National Universities Commission (NUC), Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Nigerian Employers Consultative Association (NECA), regulatory bodies in various professions, and the Federal Ministry of Employment, Labour and Productivity should embark on critical review of different skills or knowledge being acquired in Nigeria’s schools at all levels to make them industry-focused through cooperative training such that graduates would be packaged to respond to the needs of employers.
