International Youth Day is celebrated globally every August 12 to bring to the fore, the challenges militating against young people worldwide. In this report, Uche Uduma takes a look at the situation of the Nigerian youths in the labour market.
Today, August 12 is celebrated worldwide as the International Youth Day; a day when the youths’ challenges are highlighted and solutions proffered to tackle them, thus focusing on how the “leaders of tomorrow” could better be empowered.
The situation of the Nigerian youths in the labour market has remained a worrisome development, as youth unemployment and job losses have become a national issue which the government of the day is yet to address. More worrisome is the poor working condition and the paltry remuneration of employed youths, and the increase in the number of those withdrawn from the workforce.
Youths are well spring of ideas for innovation which would spur economic, political and social growth. It is expected that youths be gainfully engaged. However, unemployment has remained a perennial problem that Nigerian youths have lived to battle with everyday.
A recent study by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reveals that unemployment rate in Nigeria has taken a startling leap from four per cent in 2011 to 21 per cent as at June, this year, when the research was carried out.
However, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report indicates that unemployment in the country is just 23.9 per cent. From the reports by NBS and CIA, it is evident that crime and acts of terrorism have risen side by side with the unemployment rate.
This disturbing increase in unemployment rate undoubtedly contributed to the high wave of criminality in the country. As a matter of fact, Nigeria has never had it so bad in terms of criminality and insecurity. More worrisome is the fact that these acts of terrorism and criminality, which have further crippled the economic development of the country, are perpetrated by young people.
Job security also has remained a problem to the Nigerian youths employed in the private sector. Despite the directives by the Federal Government, cautioning the new generation banks that were hitherto the highest employers of the labour market in Nigeria, to desist from sacking its workers, the Nigerian banking industry has made it a tradition to lay-off workers whenever it is faced with economic challenges.
Few months ago, a wave of mass sack hit the banking industry, with the management of the Main Street Bank Plc, formerly Afribank, allegedly sacking no fewer than 800 workers. Almost at the same time, Sterling Bank Plc was also reported to have sacked 400 workers in a systematic mass retrenchment, aimed at reducing overhead cost.
Not long before this, the management of Access Bank allegedly eased out about 1,500 workers of the Intercontinental Bank. Also, it was alleged that Ecobank sacked over 6,000 employees of Oceanic Bank after the merger of the two banks. The Enterprise Bank followed suit and was reported to have shown 140 members of its staff the way out. The mass sack of workers in the banking industry has undoubtedly increased the number of Nigerian youths on the streets searching for jobs.
More cases of mass retrenchment of workers have continued to spring up indiscriminately. Just recently, reports by the National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW) and the Construction and Civil Engineering Senior Staff Association (CCESSA) revealed that no fewer than 100,000 workers have been sacked by multi-national corporations, and indigenous contractors over government refusal to pay for completed and certified projects in the last one year.
The few people employed are subjected to the most deplorable working condition. Many Nigerian graduates employed in some private organisations receive as little as N23,000 as monthly take-home. This development has continued to make one to wonder how far such a meager salary can take the workers, especially in states like Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt where such companies thrive.
In a chat with LEADSERSHIP SUNDAY, Stephen Ayoola, a young graduate working in a construction company, could not hide his frustrations as he decried the poor working condition faced by the Nigerian youths.
According to him; “Oftentimes, I wonder the relevance of my education. After spending years in the university to study Industrial Chemistry, and working 10 hours daily, it still surprises that I get paid just N25,000 per month, under very impossible working condition.” This has remained the pitiable story of many Nigerian youths.
The most annoying aspect of the employment situation in the country is the fact that several employment agencies, and even government agencies, have devised several opaque means to defraud the teeming unemployed youths who are desperate to get a job.
For instance, Visafone Communication Limited, last year during a recruitment exercise, allegedly demanded that the more than 2,000 applicants that responded to their job openings should buy a Visafone mobile telephone, modem or any product of the company, which the least costs about N4,500, before they could be qualified for the interview.
In another development, a Federal Government establishment, the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), announced a job opening last year, in which applicants were to pay the sum of N1,500 to Zenith Bank before they could be called for a test.
So far, it has been more than one year since thousands of jobless Nigerian graduates applied for the NSITF job, but no word has been heard from NSITF as regards the test or recruitment.
Silence, which is said to be golden, apparently seems not to be working for the Nigerian youths this time around. An unemployed graduate, based in Abuja, Ubong Moses, showed no hesitation in pouring out his reservations about the employment challenges faced by young graduates.
According to him; “It is just as if no one understands what unemployed youths are going through. When I was serving, I used to get money at least from the monthly allowance paid to Youth Corp members. But now that I have passed out, there is nothing. If someone had told me that, at my age, I will still be collecting money from my mother, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Mirabel Udoh, another unemployed graduate, told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that “nobody will complain about unemployment if the government will put in place enabling environment for investment. If government can provide loans to youths to set up something for themselves, it will go a long way in solving the problems faced by Nigerian youths.
But, government has decided to invest on the salary of Nigerian senators, who earn more in salary than Barack Obama of the United States and David Cameron of the United Kingdom, when millions of Nigerian youths can’t even feed themselves. So, tell me how crime will reduce in the country.”
These job losses and the consequent rise in unemployment can be linked with the high wave of crime and insecurity in the nation. In view of this, employment of youths should be the number one priority of any responsible government.
However, President Goodluck Jonathan at the 60th Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting said he would no longer focus attention on creating jobs in the country, because of the security challenges facing the nation.
But how can this make a difference in solving the criminality, insecurity and acts of terrorism that Nigeria is presently facing? Or how does it take jobless youths away from the streets.
The government needs to revisit its decision to put aside the job creation programme, to tackle the security challenges. For there would be no better result in tackling the insecurity issue, without first putting the youths into more productive ventures that can take them off the street and off criminality.