Tackling unemployment in Nigeria through entrepreneurship development

Saturday, 16 November 2013

One of the naughty issues confronting Nigeria as a nation is the high percentage of unemployment among a segment of an employable population.

Indeed, statistics on unemployment by various agencies shows that a large percentage of the population is unemployed with the youth constituting over 60 per cent.
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14 Proven Ways to Identify Top Lucrative Business Ideas - See more at: http://www.topnigeria.com/2013/11/tackling-unemployment-in-nigeria.html#sthash.o1EXSJf8.dpuf
14 Proven Ways to Identify Top Lucrative Business Ideas - See more at: http://www.topnigeria.com/2013/11/tackling-unemployment-in-nigeria.html#sthash.o1EXSJf8.dpuf

Statistics also shows that out of 41.5 million working Nigerians, only 5 million working Nigeria accounting for only 4.5 million are in paid employment.

The reasons for the present high percentage of unemployment are many

  1. Firstly, the number of graduate turned out year- in-year-out by the Nigerian higher intuitions is far higher than the available jobs
  2. Secondly, most of these graduates come out lacking adequate capacity to do jobs in the private sector which are mostly in technical realm
  3. The third reason is based on the erroneous believe that only white collar jobs are good enough for Nigerian graduates  
The fault is the near absence of a positive orientation among Nigerian youths that there is dignity of labour in any handwork that one engages in legitimately to earn a living

While these negative variables continue to plague the Nigerian society, the youth and other employable population are busy chasing the few or in most cases non-existing white collar jobs in government offices

Most worrisome of all the negative factors is the lack of requisite technical skills for absorption by the private sector

However, palpable panacea for this scourge is the training of the young Nigerians in entrepreneurship skills and ethical re-orientation of youths to begin to see dignity in whatever one engages in legitimately in order to earn a living

Therefore, the decision by some organisations such as the Central bank of Nigeria to establish an entrepreneurship training and skill acquisition centre in each of the six geopolitical regions of Nigeria is not only commendable but the right step in the right direction to be effective

The centre should train virgin and existing entrepreneurs in myriad of skills. 

The training should include leadership development, business management, as well as in technology and entrepreneurship skills

Basically, the entrepreneurship development centre must aim at exposing participants to meaningful real life business experiences; create opportunities for participants to have proof of concept for enterprises an increasing chance for successful start-up and job creation

Indeed, these are noble concepts by the present administration is embarking to expand the horizon of job placement and job creation, including exposing participants to chances of accessing capital and credit facilities and make them better creators of jobs to absorb the army of the unemployed and the underpaid Nigerians

These approaches, no doubt, will bring about collective contribution to the improvement of the  Nigeria socio-enonnmic development

This is one of the major ways to collectively tackle unemployment in Nigeria and reduce the existing high percentage to the beeriest minimum.

All said and done, the nation’s youth in particular and all the unemployed Nigerians must strive to change their orientation and begin to see dignity is any meaningful venture available to them to engage themselves legitimately to earn a living

What that implies, is that, they should enable themselves to cease to believe that only white collar jobs confer dignity on individual rather, to enable them find pride in any lucrative ventures

Avenues must be created through partners with government at all levels to expand the horizon of job creation and other economic frontiers     

Thank you. Comments are welcomed      

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