Nigeria requires 4.5 million new jobs annually to tackle rising unemployment

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                           NIS


To tackle rising unemployment in the country, Nigeria is expected to create 4.5 million jobs annually, according to a report by the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme, NSRP.
The NSRP report, which was unveiled in Abuja, particularly showed that the country’s unemployment rate is the highest in Sub-Sahara n Africa.
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While the country’s economy is said to have grown at the rate of seven per cent during the last decade, the report showed that unemployment doubled during the period with poverty rate standing at a staggering 54.4 percent.
Parts of the report read, “Official measures of unemployment in Nigeria were as high as 23.9 per cent for 2011, rising to 27.4 per cent in 2012, while a 2012 UN report asserted Nigeria’s youth unemployment figures were the worst in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“With a total population of 167 million, estimates of the country’s total number of unemployed given by government officials in the media during 2012 and 2013 ranged between 20.3 million and 67 million.”
Already ranked the most violent country in Africa, the report stated that growing unemployment and its attendant conflicts have driven up the number of people killed through armed violence.
The report concluded that despite the number of such schemes and the resources poured into them, youth unemployment and levels of insecurity have continued to grow in Nigeria. In the worst cases, such programmes were found to produce the opposite effect based on interviews conducted on some youth in many parts of the country. It was also found that the targeted population were never involved or consulted in the design, implementation and monitoring of the intervention programmes. In a poll conducted to determine youth perception of government’s employment programmes, 39 percent of the population agreed government publishes information on the selection process. Only 26 per cent agreed such programmes contributed to reducing the overall rate of youth unemployment. Seventy-nine per cent of the sampled population agreed that only youth close to politicians got selected while 64 per cent thought female youth were discriminated against. As part of measures to make such programmes work, the report called for better planning and coordination of youth employment sector. It also advocated a clear road-map to steer government response – whether federal, state or LGA- rather than proliferating initiatives as well as ensure strategic mix of demand and supply through policy coordination at macro and micro levels. It recommended that all arms of government convene on a regular basis to ensure joined-up approaches and maximum impact. The NSRP is a five-year programme funded by the United Kingdom, UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) with the aim of reducing violent conflict in Nigeria.

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