Should unemployment in Nigeria be curbed or be cured?
The National Bureau of Statistics estimate that unemployment rate in Nigeria now stands at 21 percent. Does it feel like that to you in Nigeria? I thought that there are a lot more unemployed youths. Sometimes I feel like more than 21% of the youths I know are not really working – but that might have something to do with the company I keep (if I am the only one). But those who sell telephone recharge cards under umbrellas by the roadside and those who push water carts on the street, I hope they were counted as unemployed?
Although it is pretty obvious to everyone, the experts still tell us that unemployed youths are altogether a ticking time bomb. Across the world, some 200 million people are unemployed and 75 million of them are young. According to a report, a “young person is three times more likely to be unemployed than an adult globally and if the disparity is not dealt with urgently economic protest will worsen”. Even our Senator tells us that we are sitting on an unemployment time bomb. Perhaps to confirm this thesis, NBS report that Nigeria’s unemployment is hardest in the North Eastern part of the country – you make the connection. So if 21% of Nigerians are now unemployed and maybe another 30% are chronically under-employed while the youth population is rising, then we need to act fast before we are blown away too early to the hereafter since according to The Tribune, over 67 million youths are unemployed in Nigeria today.
The following was the employment reform plan I drafted for when I become President of Nigeria. But since it is unlikely that I will become President anytime soon and also since I have read of the “Nigerian Unemployed Youth” organising a peaceful protest march to Aso Rock to submit 1 million CVs of unemployed Nigerian youths to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GCFR); I decided to share parts of my manifesto with Nigeria for reflection and urgent action.
The Trouble
The biggest problem I have observed with employment in Nigeria is the massive fraud that characterizes the labour market. Such as those who advertise and shortlist candidates for jobs that do not exist. I estimate that the average ratio of applications to available positions could range from 150:1 to 10,000:1 depending on the kind of jobs on offer. Since it has become common for companies and government agencies to charge applicants for bothering to apply, it goes without saying that someone is making a huge fortune from the thousands who are not going to be employed. It is also true that there are job scams circulating on the internet requiring desperate applicants to make payments and receive PIN codes to apply etc.
Make no mistake about it, finding the right person for a job is an expensive business and trying to avoid a thorough recruitment process only postpones disaster for the prospective employers. But in other parts of the world, the costs associated with recruitment are borne by the prospective employer and never by the applicant. Correct me if I am wrong, but Nigeria seem to be the only country where even the government charges its citizens (through application forms and scratch cards) to give them jobs. In other faraway lands, the governments pay their citizens instead, for being unable to find jobs for them. Actually, there are even governments exporting their unemployed to places they could get jobs.
Here is the fraud: If I set up a ‘company’ in Nigeria and call for applications, charge the applicants a little fee which I thereafter pocket (tax free, of course) without employing anyone, who would know? Or, if I receive application fees from 1000 desperate applicants, can I not use the proceeds to pay the salary of the 1 person (preferably, my cousin) whom I actually employ?
Here is the 4-point reform agenda that I propose:
First let the Ministry of Education certify all educational certificates and hold profiles in a database from which prospective employers could run searches to verify certificates and transcripts. Sometimes prospective employers are unable to decide from CVs and thus constrained to invite surplus number of applicants to interviews only so they can see their “originals” and to hear them speak.
Secondly, let the government abolish and criminalize payment of application fees, purchase of scratch cards and every other fee associated with job-seeking to every kind by applicants. The ambitious talent scout companies should be paid by the prospective employers for each of the “heads” they scout for. If this was the case, I think the sad mishaps such as the stampede that killed 30 job applicants would never again happen and employers would get the best people because no HR firm would stake its integrity and prospects by employing someone with a fake degree for its clients.
Third, register every vacancy with the government and with the Nigerian Labour Congress before application proceedings would open. If a company need 100 accountants, it should say so to the government and the labour union and also show the contract it is planning to offer them. This would eliminate the announced vacancies that are never filled and also the horrendous situation in which persons are employed without insurance, without pensions or allowance and then paid ‘salaries’ that could not cover for their transportation fees. There is also the case of employees given humanly impossible “targets” such as amount of sales (the idea is to ensure that they fail to meet the targets and then they are fired at the pleasure of the employers). It should then be the job of the NLC and the proper government department (perhaps also the National Human Rights Commission) to supervise that the employees are treated in accordance with the terms of their contract.
Have you also heard the rumour that some persons are employed in government agencies for over a year without being paid a penny, though?
Fourth, pay unemployment benefit – and many other Nigerians are calling for this. This could very easily be raised from corporate taxes. We watch on TV what companies do with their profits (such as paying Chris Brown $1 million to sing in Lagos recently); because they give all of this money to showbiz, 67 million youths have to beg their mothers for money to photocopy their CVs and to buy job scratch cards. So yes, tax the companies [again]. Of course, tax also the Federal and State Governments to raise money to feed the youths they have failed to employ – actually, I heard that if we put politicians on minimum wage, things would change faster and better.
So do you think my 4-point agenda will cure all unemployment in Nigeria? Obviously not. Sadly. But it would hopefully introduce some sanity into the labour market. The 67 million unemployed youths are today bombarded with zillions of vacancy notices out of which billions (figuratively, of course) are bogus. If they live in Kano, they are reluctant to put in too many applications in Lagos because they know how slim, uncertain but expensive their chances are. My formula would instead assure applicants who consider themselves qualified that it is a real job with a real pay and they would not be charged for applying. And if there is a HR firm involved then applicants would know that the firm is looking out keenly only for the best of them all.
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Daniel Nengak
Nengak Daniel Gondyi is presently a post-graduate student in International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö Högskola in Sweden. He is also a Senior Programme Officer of the Abuja based Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD. He holds a Bachelors’ in International Studies from the Ahmadu Bello University. Read his full profile here
