Investors tackle Nigeria’s youth unemployment at WorldStage economic summit
Economic analysts and investors gathered to find lasting solutions to issues surrounding unemployment in Nigeria at the Worldstage Economic Summit held in Lagos last week.
Speaking on the theme: “Addressing unemployment crisis in Nigeria,” Femi Saibu, an associate professor in the department of Economics, Faculty of Social Science, University of Lagos, said, “the rate of youth unemployment in recent times has risen to as high as 50 percent of the labour and the poverty index has risen to 66 percent while economic discomfort has risen from below 30 percent in 2010 to above 50 percent now.”
To him, unemployment was “a consequence of low output demand and supply.” He also identified a mismatch between the graduates produced and the qualification companies want to see as another reason for unemployment besides what he called “structural and frictional unemployment” to be types of unemployment existing in the country.
“Employment cannot be created in a vacuum. It is driven by the desire to produce more output. The type of unemployment in Nigeria requires a solution that must address supply gaps, educational gaps, increase economic capacity, address labour unfriendly innovation and technology adoption,” Saibu said.
Advising the government to create the enabling environment and allow the private sector to create jobs, Segun Adeleye, President/ CEO, World Stage Limited, who described the unemployment rate in Nigeria as endemic, said; “the alarming rate of unemployment in Nigeria should not only be of great concern to the government, but also the private sector and other critical stakeholders in the economy.”
Omolara Aromolaran, MD/CEO, Crown Natures Nigeria Plc, urged Nigerian youths to stop sitting idle and stop expecting the government to spoon feed them.
“Part of the problem we have is that the youths are disconnected. As an unemployed, you have no reason sit back at home for everything to be provided for you.
Everybody has a role to play in Nigeria. If this country is going to move forward, we all need to play our roles effectively well rather than depending on government to do all for us. In our level we can begin to take up this issue of unemployment. Job creation is not the responsibility of the government all of the time, but also the responsibility of Nigerians to begin to look inwards, because there is always something that we can do. Clearly, a nation that consumes and does not produce will have the problem of unemployment. Only if we can produce what we use here, we will keep having the problem,” she said.
Suggesting possible solutions to reduce the growing rate of unemployment in Nigeria, Sunday Oduntan, executive director, Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), said that getting the power sector right is a prerequisite to boost the economy, saving the country from its current status of high unemployment rate.
While delivering his note titled ‘getting the power sector right to boost productivity’, Oduntan said; “we cannot talk about employment if we do not get it right on electricity generation. In order to achieve this, certain milestones must be achieved like funding of liquidity by subsidy and private sector fund, stability and security in generation, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) debts must be paid, continuous and sustained investment on electrical infrastructures particularly with TCN, and aggressive metering must be sustained.”
Emphasizing the importance of power to boost the economy and create employment, Oduntan argued that, “no country can boost productivity without constant electricity supply,” stating also that electricity supply from the national grid is five times cheaper than self-generated power from generators.
JUMOKE AKIYODE & DESMOND OKON