The Steel and Engineering Workers’ Union of Nigeria (SEWUN) has called on the Federal Government to make job creation a top priority by adopting policies that expand employment, boost local production, and strengthen domestic industries.

SEWUN President-General Sunday Oyabugbe made the call in his welcome address at the opening of the union’s 2026 yearly industrial relations conference at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State.

Oyabugbe said creating sustainable employment opportunities was critical to addressing the economic hardship confronting Nigerian workers and their families, particularly amid rising cost of living, inflation, high transportation and food costs, and declining purchasing power.

He urged the government to increase investment in productive sectors, infrastructure, manufacturing, energy, education and human capital development, stressing that these were essential to expanding the economy’s capacity to generate decent and sustainable jobs.

“Our economy can only achieve meaningful growth when there is adequate investment in productive sectors, infrastructure, manufacturing, energy, education and human capital development,” he said.

He urged the government to pursue economic policies that would stimulate production, create jobs, strengthen local industries and ensure that the benefits of economic growth were fairly distributed.

The SEWUN leader also called for stronger collaboration among government, employers and trade unions in developing policies that would protect workers’ earnings, improve living standards and promote sustainable employment.

He stressed that a stronger productive sector would not only create employment but also improve workers’ welfare, strengthen local industries and enhance Nigeria’s economic resilience.

Oyabugbe linked job creation and economic development to industrial peace, noting that effective collective bargaining and sustained engagement among government, employers and workers were necessary to prevent industrial disputes and promote workplace stability.

The conference, organised in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Management Studies (CAMS), University of Ibadan, has the theme, ‘Collective Bargaining, Strikes and the Quest for Industrial Peace in Nigeria.’

The three-day conference, Oyabugbe said, would examine collective bargaining, industrial disputes and strikes, implementation of negotiated agreements, workers’ welfare, productivity and strategies for strengthening industrial harmony.