Growing unemployment rates cannot be tackle by government alone – Expert

The alarming rate of unemployment in the country is not only a great concern to the three tiers of government, but also to the private sector and other critical stakeholders of the economy on job creation.

President of World Stage Limited, Segun Adeyeye gave this indication recently while announcing the date for the world economic summit scheduled to hold in Lagos between 7^th and 8Th of September, 2016.

According to him, the summit would address the growing unemployment challenges in Nigeria and also explore other avenues to grow the economy.

“While some people see it as an indictment on the educational system that seems to be churning out ‘unemployable graduates’ it is also being seen as an economic deficiency, with economy having a limitation of the labour force it can sustain by its productivity,” he said.

He said Nigeria’s unemployment rate of 10.4% represents about 14 percent of global unemployment in fourth quarter 2015, the 7th highest in the world with only Kenya, Congo and Djibouti having worse rates in Africa.

“This should be embarrassing when compare with countries such as Qatar (0.2%) unemployment rate, Cambodia (0.3%), Belarus (0.5%), Thailand (0.8%), Benin (1.0%), Madagascar (1.2%), Laos (1.40%) and Guinea Bissau (1.80%),” he said.

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He said the statistics that job loss in Nigeria dropped by only 1.29% in Q4 2015 at a period when oil price crashed by 65% could only show that there are other inherent factors outside oil that shape the labour market, which will be reviewed at the summit.

On how an economic summit can address unemployment challenges, he said, “We are in an era where Nigeria’s economic problem can no longer be left in the hand of government to fix alone. There are organisations and experts that have the knowledge of how to solve economic challenges of any kind, but in most cases, they are either not talking at the right forum, or they are not being heard.”