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The Growth Of Nigerian Economy And Unemployment (1980-2010)
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However, voluntary unemployment is said to occur when persons choose not
to work or accept job for which they are qualified at ongoing wage rate
because they have means of support other than employment for instance
affluent individuals. Involuntary unemployment is when persons cannot
obtain work even if they are willing to accept low real wages than
qualified workers who are currently in employment (Arthur, 1968).
Visible unemployment exist when persons is without work but are seeking
at a given wage rate. Disguised unemployment exist when persons are
without work but not openly seeking for work, who will seek for work at
ongoing wage rate if unemployment were much lower.
Despite the
contention in the above classification the taxonomy of unemployment
includes a condition of being out of work, an activity of searching for
work, an attitude of desiring a job under certain situation and needing a
job (Levine, 1959).
Unfortunately, there had been little or no
economic growth and development in Nigeria over the period depicted by
rising unemployment; the need to avert the negative effects of
unemployment has made the budget on unemployment problems to feature
very prominently in the development objectives of many developing
countries like Nigeria.
Englama (2001), “a person is said to be
unemployed when he or she is able and willing to work and is available
for work (that is, the person is actively searching for employment) but
does not have work.
The international labour organization (ILO)
defines the unemployed as numbers of the economically active population
who are without work but available for and seeking for work including
people who have lost their jobs and those who have voluntarily left
work.
There are three ways to become unemployed, some people are
sacked, others are temporarily laid off and some people voluntarily quit
their existing jobs. But the inflow to unemployment can also come from
people not previously in the labour force, school-leavers (new
entrants), and people who once have a job then ceased even to register
as unemployed, and are now coming back into the labour force in search
of a job (re-entrant) (Beggs, 2000). On the other hand there is a
situation in which a worker is employed, but not in the desired capacity
where in terms of compensation hours, it is called a situation of under
employment.
According to NBS, unemployment covers persons age 15 to
64 who during the reference period were currently available for work,
seeking for work but were without work, person is unemployed if he or
she is engaged in the production of goods and services thereby
contributing to the GDP. Unemployment rate rose to 23.90% in the 2011
statistic on unemployment.
According to Lipsey (1963), unemployment
brings about economic waste and causes human suffering. The
contributions and attitude of this economic waste were emphasized by the
fact that the factor services are the least durable economic commodity.
The
socio-economic effect of unemployment include fall in national output,
an increase in rural-urban migration, waste of human resources, high
rate of dependency ratio, frustration, poverty and depression, all sort
of in moral activities like criminal behaviour, prostitution, armed
robbery, and rapping. (Adebayo, 1999).
According to Beggs (2000),
unemployment can be generally broken down into several types that are
related to different causes including:
Classical unemployment occurs
where wages are too high to employers due to the main wage laws or trade
unions activity. Frictional unemployment exist where there is lack of
adjustment between demand and supply of labour; lack of necessary
skills, labour immobility, breakdown of plants and machinery, and
shortage of raw material; temporary unemployment arising from the normal
job search process, it includes people re-entering into the job market
after their long absence people who have quit their jobs in search for
better ones; people who have been laid off. Structural unemployment
arises when jobs are eliminated by changes in the structure of the
economy due to technological progress and shift in the demand for goods
and services for instance becoming increasingly computerized some
workers are losing their job at the same time new jobs such as a
computer repairs, technicians and software engineers are employed.
Seasonal unemployment results from seasonal fluctuation in demand for
instance the employment for ice-cream factories is only for the summer;
they remain unemployed during the winter; the agricultural workers who
are employed during harvesting and sowing season remain idle for the
rest of the year.
Again, inadequate information causes unemployment
and this is a source of unemployment that cannot be neglected; if people
do not know that jobs are available they will not take them. The major
economic shocks such as the problem of great depression, unemployment,
and under-employment can be avoided through policy changes; government
will stabilize the economy and maintain continuous economic growth.
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