My contribution to Hive Ghana's weekly engagement: WK 7
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Unemployment is a global issue in 2nd and 3rd world countries, and it is a pressing issue in Nigeria today.
Nigeria, as a populous country in Africa, faces numerous economic, social, and political factors that contribute to its high unemployment rate.
Finding the best measures or effective resolution to curb this issue is essential to our economic development and social stability.
The following ideas can be put in place to mitigate the situation:
DIRECT HIRING
Governments can certainly create job opportunities, by hiring graduates directly. These jobs may be within the Government sector or in state-owned enterprises.
Direct hiring has been a standard approach, popular in some developing and underdeveloped countries, particularly for graduates of higher education who were essentially guaranteed government jobs.
This approach will offer stability and job security, particularly in situations where the private sector is unable to generate sufficient employment.
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
Educational institutions often add to this pressure of unemployment in the sense that they keep giving courses that no longer exist in this contemporary world and courses that have little demand out there.
There should be a proper structure for introducing new courses that are in high demand. Also, teach and train undergraduates to be employable with basic skills such as soft skills and hard skills.
SUBSIDIES TO BOOST PRIVATE SECTOR HIRING
The government can encourage employers to
retain existing workers or hire new workers by providing targeted incentives or subsidies. This will raise effective labor productivity. As an alternative, direct public subsidies may be tied to hiring or retention. That option may include public financing for upfront employment costs as well as firm- or industry-specific training before employment. It may also involve direct wage subsidies. Such measures require unemployment insurance payments in case of layoff.
*** Case study:*** in Palestine, the U.S. Agency for International Development financed a project to provide intensive practical training to more than 1,000 university graduates and financial incentives to firms to hire them.
STRUCTURAL POLICIES
Not only here in Nigeria, we face this issue of unemployment in developed and developing countries. The most promising avenue to increase employment is through structural policy. These kinds of policies are likely to pay off in the medium-to-long term. They actually range across the entire spectrum of development policy, from health programs to business incubation efforts.
Three areas deserve particular attention:
- Restructuring education and training to ensure the employability of workers can contribute to competitiveness
- Improving the business environment to improve flexibility for workers and employers will accelerate economic growth and reduce
costs or improve the quality of goods and services, thereby strengthening the competitiveness of value chains. - by offering incentives for competitive technology choices by investors and firms with a greater impact on employment
This is my little contribution to how we can mitigate or reduce unemployment in Nigeria.
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