Rising graduate unemployment

IT is sobering that many graduates cannot find a job. The National Bureau of Statistics says: “The unemployment rate for Q1 2024 was 5.3 per cent, showing an increase from 5.0 per cent recorded in Q3 2023.” Embedded in the findings is the disturbing information that unemployment is rising among graduates.

It means graduates go jobless after years of study, often disrupted and lengthened by strikes over teachers’ pay and welfare, and shabby infrastructure. This is frustrating for the graduates and devastating to their parents who, given the country’s economic challenges, likely went to great lengths to see their children through school. This needs urgent attention.

More than 6.3 million Nigerians were unemployed as of 2021, per Statista. The figure should be higher in 2024. The underemployed segment, those who do jobs far beneath their capacity or put in too few hours of work is ignored. In 2016, the World Bank put the percentage of unemployed Nigerians with advanced education at 13.69 per cent; in 2019, it rose to 15.3 per cent. It keeps growing.

Unemployment has dire consequences. When there are no jobs for graduates, the younger ones develop a distaste for education, leading to dangerous conclusions like ‘education is a scam.’
Unemployment depletes the national workforce and lowers productivity. The GDP is adversely affected. A country with a low GDP is at the mercy of foreign lenders.

With jobs hard to come by, unengaged young minds might resort to crime, even sophisticated and violent ones. This is a threat to society and puts an enormous strain on the security agents struggling to rein in the army of youths involved in internet fraud. Recently, many youths were arrested at an internet-fraud academy in Delta State. They were reportedly undergoing tutelage in internet fraud.
It was a disaster waiting to happen. Too many people are finding themselves on the streets without work and hope. The country’s textile companies, steel complexes, and paper mills, previously employers of thousands of young graduates, have collapsed. The yawning job void this created is yet to be filled.
When multinational companies that once employed a chunk of Nigerians started leaving the country, citing steep energy costs and other unfavourable factors, they took the jobs with them, leaving their former employees with few alternatives.

All hope is not lost. The Nigerian Railway Corporation is still around though far below its full strength. The four refineries are perhaps the worst-run public facilities in the country. Both should be privatised to make them viable and mop up the unengaged youths.

SMEs, the world’s largest employers of labour, are finding it extremely difficult to access capital. High interest rates, high energy costs, and multiple taxation are choking them. The government should pay more attention to the SMEs so they can provide jobs and help boost the economy.

Insecurity is a big issue and should be fixed. Many farmers cannot go to their farms because of attacks by bandits/terrorists. Many farmers pay heavy levies to these non-state actors before being allowed to plant or harvest their crops. This is a turn-off for young farmers, including new graduates who would want to make a living from farming. Many businesses have shut down because of insecurity. The government has its work cut out on the security front.

In his Independence Day broadcast President Bola Tinubu proposed a 30-day national youth conference, during which unemployment, among other issues, would be discussed. Tinubu may not need a month-long confab with youths to create jobs. Constant electricity, cutting transportation costs, pushing back the non-state actors, and allowing the SMEs to breathe; among other well-thought-out interventions will do the trick.