Worried by the alarming state of youth unemployment in Nigeria, the Federal government, through the National Planning Commission (NPC) has organised a seminar with stakeholders with a view to coming up with the best approach to address the problem.
A seminar was being put together by the NPC, in close collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), a research based institute and a Parastatal of the Commission to provide evidence-based assessment and solution to the problem.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has put the rate of youth unemployment in Nigeria at 40 Million, representing 23.9%.
Barrister Fidel Ugbo, Secretary to the National Planning Commission, who spoke at the event on behalf of the National Planning Minister, said that the unemployed population in Nigeria, is dominated by the youths who are mostly secondary and tertiary school leavers.
The secretary supported his claim with statistics that shows that, youth unemployment by age group (15-24) rose from 30.2 percent in 2008 to 41.6 percent in 2009 and 37.7% in 2011, while age group (25-34) rose from 15.7% to 17% and 22.4% within same period.
He also explained that the FG acknowledges that young people are the most vulnerable and most likely to be in temporary employment compared to adult workers in Nigeria, pointing out further, that the youths face increasing difficulties every day in search for decent job after leaving school.
Barrister Ugbo however, mentioned that government is committed and taking steps towards redressing the situation through the Transformation Agenda. He stated also that a process is being put in place by the government to carry out a study on youth unemployment in Nigeria.
"Government is working closely with the NBS to undertake job creation surveys on a quarterly basis, as part of the effort towards ensuring effective realization of investing in skills and vocational training to Nigerian graduates in a bid to turn them in to small business owners and employers of labour"; he added.
Accordingly, the Commission's Secretary further revealed that government is committed to the pursuit of job creation and addressing of youth unemployment through various reform programmes, among which, is the power reform programme to provide stable power supply that will ensure the growth of small scale businesses.
Other efforts by the government is in the area of provision of infrastructure like efficient road and rail transport systems and other ancillary facilities that will encourage the growth of small scale enterprises.
"Government has also embarked on a number of initiatives aimed at addressing unemployment, like the Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) project, which was launched in October 2011 to provide jobs for between 80,000 and 110,000 unemployed Nigerian youths over a period of three years, while NEDEP is aimed at creating 3.5 Million direct jobs and 5 Million indirect jobs between 2013 and 2015"
While giving an overview at the event, the Director General of NISER, Professor Olufemi Taiwo said that the Federal Government has requested NISER to conduct a study on youth unemployment in Nigeria, in order to provide a check on the challenge which remains unabated.
He gave an instance of the NBS statistics in 2011 on the unemployment rate for all age groups which stood at 27.3 percent based on a minimum of 40 hours of work per week, while that for youths aged 15-24 was 37.7 per cent.
Professor Taiwo also said, "It is a common knowledge, however, that high unemployment rate is not peculiar to Nigeria, which means that this study could also contribute to the strategy for addressing the challenges of unemployment globally".
According to him, the primary objective of the study is to formulate empowerment programmes for addressing the problem of youth unemployment in Nigeria with specific areas of attention on intervention programmes to address the challenge nationally and internationally, draw lessons and identify best practices; describe the magnitude and distribution of the unemployment.
Federal Republic Of Nigeria | nigeria.gov.ng