How skills’ dearth breeds graduate unemployment

About 47 per cent of the 500, 000 graduates turned yearly by tertiary institutions do not get jobs, recruitment agency Jobberman said in its latest survey. The agency and other personnel management experts blame it on the gap between available skills and labour market demands. This has led to renewed calls for skills acquisition for graduates and non-graduates to make them self-employed. Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA and TEMITAYO AYETOTO report.

She personifies the new thinking in favour of skills acquisition for graduates and non-graduates to halt rising graduate unemployment in the country. At age 13, Faith Anurika Onyekachi, a Senior Secondary School (SSSI) pupil of AKOD College, Ikotun, Lagos, is on her way to becoming a successful fashion designer. “My dream is to become a successful fashion designer. I want to combine a career in fashion designing with a degree in medicine from the university,” Anurika, an indigene of Okigwe in Imo State, said, exuding confidence.

When The Nation met the aspiring teenage entrepreneur in the company of her father, Mr. Daniel Onyekachi, a businessman, she revealed that she has been an apprentice for over a year now, and has already started cutting materials for sowing. She said because of her passion for fashion designing, she has been able to combine the vocation seamlessly with her studies. “I want my daughter armed with a skill that will make her self-employed even after acquiring a degree,” Mr. Onyekachi declared.

To him, the fear of possible endless search for paid employment in a market saturated by jobless graduates is the beginning of wisdom. Such fear must have forced him to horn the entrepreneurial skills of his daughter even before graduating from the high school. With adequate skills and hands-on experience, he said, her daughter would not join the long queue of jobless graduates, but become an employer of labour.

That was a strategic thinking forced by current realities in the country where the rising rate of graduate unemployment has become an albatross the authorities. Experts have described the nation’s recent unemployment statistics particularly amongst graduates as damning and scary.

For instance, the latest survey by Jobberman, a leading recruitment agency in the West African region, showed that 47 per cent of the country’s varsity graduates are unemployed. According to the survey, taken by almost 90, 000 people, the tertiary institutions produce an estimated 500, 000 graduates yearly. There are also Nigerians who, after completing their studies overseas, return home to compete for jobs.

Describing the data as a sign of the “need for urgent actions on both public and private sector operators,” Jobberman said that in the last few years, the number of unemployed university graduates has climbed, with employers attributing the problem to the quality of university education. The recruitment agency said employers of labour believe that some graduates are ‘unemployable’ as they lack the required skills.

For instance, the survey observed that Nigeria’s university system, which holds about 150 schools, is mostly over-populated and can only cater for 40 per cent of the annual applicants. Impliedly, varsities have been struggling to deliver quality education with their overstretched facilities.

The Nation learnt that while the university system alone holds about 150 institutions, Nigeria in all has well over 300 universities, polytechnics and colleges of education churning out over one million graduates annually. Because the economy is largely unproductive, it has not been robust enough to absorb up to 20 per cent of the products of the institutions. Besides, the few graduates lucky to be absorbed by employers of labour go through series of retraining exercises at huge cost to fit into current skills demand reality.

Kayode James, a 2010 graduate of Physics Education from the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Ondo State, observed that it is normal for graduates to be employed, trained and given insight on what to do to suit the needs of the job, but that employers of labour do not want to do that. “They want someone who has probably trained up himself or gathered experience before they can employ him,” Kayode told The Nation.

Admitting that it is true that some graduates who acquire skills for themselves and eventually get employed, he said: “You don’t expect someone fresh from the university to have the same knowledge and skills like someone with five-year experience on the job. But the situation now is that even if some organisations put up adverts for employment, they seem to have a prelist of people they want to engage. They just do the screening for formality.”

Kayode, who disagreed that Nigerian graduates are unemployable, however, noted that some graduates, who bribe their way through the system, can hardly defend their qualifications. Beyond the issue of unemployable, he accused employers of labour of deliberately raising the stake too high due to the stiff competition in the labour market.

“Because majority of these companies are rushed, they are pushed to expect more, and as a result scale up the standard and requirements for employment,” he said, adding that corruption in the employment market is also responsible.

His words: “Nowadays, employment depends on who you know. That’s what I have experienced. It is difficult getting a job because I don’t have any relation at the helm of affairs in companies that I can run to for help. If you get out there and tell people you need employment, they will first think of their own people or relatives who also need employment.

“Even if they are not yet qualified or yet to finish from the university, they reserve the opportunity for them rather than use up the space for someone they don’t know. If you don’t know someone who can lobby for you to get a job, it’s a problem. That is why I have kept going up and down, writing applications upon applications.”

ITF, personnel managers,

others worried

The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) has identified the existing gap between available skills and market demands as being responsible for rising unemployment in the country. Its Acting Director-General Dickson Onuoha said a lot of job vacancies currently exist in the country with no skilled manpower to fill them.

Butressing his claim, Onuoha said the ITF, in collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), launched a National Industrial Skills Gap Assessment Survey in 2015, and the result of the survey showed that there were vacancies that were not adequately filled.

He said: “Preliminary information from the report of that exercise shows that there are a lot of vacancies in the industries. This is not because of lack of youths or graduates, but because they lack the required skills to fill these vacancies.’’

The President, Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM), Mr. Anthony Arabome, traced the skills’ to “mis-alignment of the educational system output and the skill-sets required by current employers of labour.”

Arabome, who spoke in Lagos at a media and stakeholders engagement on: “The Management of National Unemployment Challenge (MNUC),” listed other causes of unemployment to include policy inconsistency, poor political governance and setting of policy direction, which in turn elicits a harsh business environment; lack of stakeholders ownership of national employment policy.

The MNUC was a recent research study conducted by the ITF as part of its efforts to boost the Federal Government’s fight against unemployment. Arabome said the study was a response to some perceived social, economic and political challenges of unemployment in Nigeria. It was also part of the institute’s contribution to national transformation.

Apparently to underscore its belief that skills gap was breeding graduate unemployment, the CIPM chief said the institute was willing and ready to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to review/design the curricula of the nation’s institutions of higher learning to reflect current skills demand reality.

He said: “CIPM is available to train the trainers in those institutions of higher learning to ensure that industry realities are embedded in their learning delivery processes. Resolving unemployment requires collaboration of different stakeholders in the nation.”

Arabome stressed that the recent unemployment data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) should be worrisome to all stakeholders. According to him, indicators have shown that unemployment was growing at an increasing rate, with dire consequences for the nation.

He said a report had shown that 20 foreign shipping companies have closed shops, thereby throwing over 3, 000 able bodied individuals into the employment market. “This is in addition to the rising trend of unemployment recently observed in the financial, oil and gas sectors of the economy,” Arabome said.

Not a few Nigerians are worried with NBS’ latest unemployment data, which showed that youth unemployment has grown from an average of 16.43 per cent in 2014 to 21.50 per cent in the first quarter of this year. The population of the labour force in Nigeria, according to the bureau, increased to 79.9 million in the second quarter from 78.5 million in the first quarter.

Analysing the data, the President, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Mr. Tony Ejinkeonye, said the report has translated that 1.4 million persons from the economically active population joined the labour force.

“Similarly, during the reference period, the number of unemployed in the labour force increased by 1.16 million persons,” he said, warning that from the above statistics, “there is no doubt that serious labour market problems loom.”

Jolted by the unemployment data, stakeholders and experts in the education sector have warned that with recession biting harder, Nigeria may erupt into crisis of unimaginable dimensions.

They noted that the largest segments of the population caught in the web of unemployment are youths, whose frustrations and juvenile propensities may propel them into violence.

A scourge and its dire

consequences

The reason for the experts’ fear over high level of unengaged workforce is not far-fetched. They have been able to draw a link between unemployment and insecurity, stating that adopting proactive and holistic approach to halt rising graduate unemployment has become imperative.

The unprecedented upsurge in violent crimes and general insecurity is traceable to the rising unemployment in the last couple of years, making it impossible for many Nigerians not to sleep with both eyes closed. Kidnapping, advance fee fraud (a.k.a. 419), armed robbery, prostitution, cultism, drug and child trafficking, among other vices, have become daily occurrences.

Worsening the security situation are the violent campaigns by militant groups such as the Boko Haram in the Northeast, Niger Delta Avengers in the Southsouth and Biafra agitators in the Southeast. The activities of these groups have scared away businesses in their areas of operations.

The dearth of employment opportunities have turned many unemployed graduates to willing recruits to terrorist organisations. Many others are said to have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean while attempting to enter Europe in search of greener pastures. Those who came out with good grades but could not find jobs are forced to migrate to other countries resulting to serious brain drain.

Economy also affected

Mr. Ejinkeonye described the consequences of a high and rising unemployment rate as unhealthy as they weaken consumers’ purchasing power, which remained the driver of local economies.

The ACCI president also noted that the quality of health services and living standards have been on the receiving end. “In an economy with high unemployment rate, the hours lost by the unemployed are usually unrecoverable,” he stated, warning that unless all the tiers of government unite to tackle the menace, crime rates would continue unabated and the economy would continue to dwindle.

Skills acquisition’ll

help turn the corner

To avert the danger posed by rising graduate unemployment, experts say that the nation’s education curriculum must be redrawn to incorporate entrepreneurial skills and enterprise development. They argue that the time has come for a paradigm shift in favour of skill acquisition and hands-on experience in various vocations for Nigerian graduates.

This, they noted, would make graduates self-employed after leaving school, while those in school would find something doing even before completing their education.

“Having a degree does not mean you can’t do any other jobs,” Managing Consultant, Nesbet Consulting, a Lagos-based finance and management consultants, Mr. Alaba Olusemore, said.

Insisting that “self-employment is the way to go,” Olusemore said this could be achieved through practical trainings and workshops in universities in collaboration with ITF, adding that there is nothing stopping an under-graduate from engaging in any legitimate money-making venture while in the university.

The analyst said that such collaborations would turn graduates to solution providers, while also saving them the stress and trauma of endless and fruitless search for non-existing white collar jobs.

Olusemore spoke of need for closer collaboration between industries and varsities with emphasis on entrepreneurial training, while ensuring a perfect link between the curriculum and industry requirements. The arrangement, according to him, would ultimately eliminate the challenge of churning out graduates, some of who are unemployable.

His recommendations appear to be hitting the right chord in the ears of government. Onuoha informed that the ITF has been training some 9, 500 youths in 18 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital territory (FCT), in various trade areas.

At the flag off of this year’s National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP) in Alausa, Lagos, the ITF chief called for more support for the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s commitment to rapid industrialisation and economic diversification.

He said the training aligned with government’s commitment to bridging the unemployment gap through entrepreneurial development, adding that the programme was designed to equip young Nigerians with requisite skills for employment and job creation.

The Nation learnt that the first phase of the programme began four years ago and has continued in subsequent phases in all states of the federation and FCT, producing thousands of well-trained artisans. Trainees were exposed to intensive technical and vocational skills for three months in different trade areas.

Govt intensifies push

to tackle unemployment

President Buhari has never hidden his intension to create jobs. From the outset, his administration made job creation a priority. To underscore the importance he attaches to job creation, the name of the ministry was changed to Ministry of Labour and Employment to reflect its pivotal role in the administration’s job creation efforts.

However, the unemployment crisis appears to have gotten out of hand, despite assurances by Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, that government was on top of the situation.

Ngige, at the recent inauguration of a school-to-work training programme for 150 secondary school pupils in Cross River State, restated government’s committed to the reduction of graduate and non-graduate unemployment in the country, and has designed programmes and schemes towards skills acquisition for them.

Listing such skills to include barbing, phone and computer repairs, painting, hairdressing and garment production among others, he said the training programme would equip pupils with employability skills that would make them self-reliant.

Other social intervention programmes to tackle the menace include the Graduate Teachers Conversion Scheme, Commercial Farmers Training Project, Conditional Cash Transfer, Skill Acquisition Programme to impact skills such as metal fabrication, plumbing, electric wiring, baking and interior decoration among others.

The way forward

Such interventions and employment schemes, experts say, are mere drops in the ocean, as they have failed to reduce or halt rising unemployment, especially amongst graduates. They therefore urged the authorities to initiate a more pro-active, comprehensive, fundamental and sustainable strategy, starting from overhauling the education curricula to stem the scourge.

Ejinkeonye argued that education and training are imperative for job creation. He said it would give the long-term unemployed new skills to enable them find jobs in developing industries or to become self-employed.

Stakeholders in the education sector also stressed that without skill acquisition graduate unemployment will continue to rise astronomically. The arrangement will combine theories with practical that will help graduates secure jobs after leaving school.

Other strategies being proposed include the adoption of appropriate policies that will create enabling environment for the private sector, especially the small and scale medium enterprises (SMEs) to retain jobs and create new ones; massive investments in infrastructure to reduce the high infrastructure deficit and reduce the high cost of doing business.

There appears to be a consensus. It is that quality, supportive infrastructure particularly steady electricity supply would improve private sector productivity and competition, which in turn, will boost capacity to create new jobs.

Will government heed these wise counsels and save the country from the looming danger of rising graduate unemployment? Doing so will certainly be a tough task particularly now that economic recession has thrown the country into confusion. Heeding wise counsel will go a long way to avert looming doom.