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Solving Unemployment And Youth Entrepreneurship In Nigeria
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1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:
The unconducive economic
conditions in Nigeria, namely lack of electricity, poor road network,
poor communication system, insecurity, kidnapping, etc., have caused the
close down of many companies, throwing many people into labor market.
In a certain year over 100 textile factories closed shops across the
country and the trend continues. Principal among other reasons for this
is lack of electricity. Factories depend on generators to power their
factories and this is inefficient and increases unit cost of production
and makes their products uncompetitive.
Yet the country becomes a
dumping ground for all manners of imports. Some other factors that
account for unemployment in Nigeria include unconcerned attitude of
Local Governments to create employment, non-diversification of the
economy, lack of serious emphasis on skill acquisition, no serious
attention is given to the informal sector to empower the sector and even
outstanding corpers are still thrown to the labor market.
Another
unfortunate development is that our school system produces “quarterâ€
baked graduates, majority of them are unemployable. Most employers
prefer Nigerians with foreign certificates. Nigerian universities
produce graduates whose skills are suspect, making it difficult for them
to be recruited. The reasons for this include admission overload, poor
funding of universities and the “sorting†syndrome. Arising from the
issue of poor funding followed by incessant strikes in the university
system. Between 1993 and 2003, there were 9 strikes (Okebukola, 2006)
culminating in a period loss of 32.75 months or approximately an
equivalent of 8.2 semesters (Adawo, Essien and Ekpo, 2012).
Unemployment,
underemployment and unmitigated rural-urban migration have come to
characterize the Nigerian labour market. This has been compounded by
frightening number of joiners as schools, polytechnics and universities
churn out leavers in a geometric progression. This has impact-ted on the
rate of social vices like robbery, kidnapping, prostitution, human
trafficking, child abuse and unfair labour practices experienced mostly
by the unemployed youths, which are other noticeable dimensions to the
complexities of contemporary Nigerian employment dynamics. According to
the National Manpower Board, (2009) the Nigeria labour market could
barely absorb 10% of the over 3.8 million persons turned out by the
Nigeria educational system on a yearly basis. In brief, the employment
trends in Nigeria indicate that, without a concerted effort to tackle
the problems of unemployment and underemployment the situation could get
worse. Therefore this research study will articulate practical and
workable solutions to this rather macro-economic evil in Nigeria with a
special to Lagos State.
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