Lack of skill leaves job positions unfilled amid high unemployment rate
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Nigeria has an unemployment rate of 33 per cent, with young graduates among the most jobless, but the irony is that 15.7 per cent of job vacancies are hard to fill because applicants lack basic and advanced skills.
Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Director General Joseph Ari, who disclosed the vacancy figures, said the labour force has reached 69 million or 57 per cent of the working population.
“When we had the assessment study on the sixth priority sectors of the economy with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), we found out that the jobs are actually there, but we do not even have the requisite Nigerians to occupy those jobs.
“ITF has been at the forefront of advocating the need for including the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the Nigerian educational curriculum,” he said.
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Bridging gap between theory and practice
Ari added that the ITF is working round the clock on students’ industrial work experience to bridge the gap between theory and practice as well as erase negative societal view of vocational skills or position and entrepreneurship, per The Nation.
He was speaking at the Nigeria Employers Summit (NEM) in Abuja where he quoted data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to explain the demographics of the 69 million labour force as follows:
- Youths aged 15-34 years – 29 million (43 per cent)
- Fully employed – 30 million (44 per cent)
- Unemployed – 23 million (33 per cent)
- Underemployed – 16 million (23 per cent)
Ari cited the ITF-UNIDO Skills Gap Assessment Report 2017 which estimated the working population (15-64 years able and willing to work) at 122 million out of which 68 million (56 per cent) are youths aged 15-34 years.
He listed the reasons for unemployment to include
- Skills mismatch/lack of employable skills
- Irregular academic calendar caused by strikes
- Inadequate education curriculum
- A lack of emphasis on life skills
- More of theory than practical
- Negative view of vocational skills and entrepreneurship
- Rural-to-urban migration
- A lack of interest in agriculture