Nigerians bemoan unemployment, task government on job creation

Job creation was the main concern of many Nigerians as they join the world to celebrate Workers’ Day. Indeed the Latest report by the NOI Polls has indicated the huge unemployment gap in the country, urging the Federal Government to concentrate on job creation.

The polls showed that a larger percentage of Nigerians placed job creation as top priority on list of what government should focus on in 2018.

The report stated that: “This is no surprise as unemployment has been one of the greatest challenges facing the Nigerian economy snowballing into other socio-economic issues such as poverty and insecurity amongst others,”

The issue of unemployment has maintained an upward rising trend over the years. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the country’s unemployment rate rose from 14.2 per cent in fourth quarter 2016 to 18.8 per cent in Q4, 2017. Not to mention youth unemployment rate in Nigeria which increased to 33.10 per cent in the third quarter of 2017 from 29.50 per cent in the second quarter of 2017.

While the onus is on the government to create jobs especially through an enabling environment for SMEs to thrive, there is a clear indication that Nigerians are willing to explore various opportunities in tackling the issue of unemployment.

According to the report, “An important line of action the government needs to adopt in creating jobs through an enabling environment would be to address Nigeria’s infrastructure issue; especially in the area of adequate power supply as this would naturally incentivise the spring of more SMEs and attract more foreign investors. This will in turn lead to more employments opportunities in the country.

“Another critical line of action which needs to be considered is the revival of the agricultural sector with an emphasis on improving the image of agriculture in Nigeria to attract youth participation; employing greater use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT); partnership with the private sector; easy access to land and credit in order to generally make agriculture more lucrative.

“These would go a long way in tackling the issue of unemployment especially for the Nigerian youths as well as create opportunities for multiple streams of income even for the employed,” it stated.

In revealing their aspirations for 2018 majority (33 percent) of Nigerian respondents indicated that they would love to start up a new business or expand their businesses for those who already have businesses, further buttressing the high rate of unemployment in the country.