NECA reveals solutions to unemployment, hardship to Tinubu

To put an end to unemployment and hardship in Nigeria, the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has outlined what President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration must accomplish.

NAN reports that the Director-General of NECA, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, made this announcement in a statement on Monday after the International Labour Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland, which just ended.

In order to address Nigeria’s high unemployment rate and hardship, Oyerinde suggested that President Tinubu concentrate on apprenticeship.

According to the 2020 unemployment report from the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world at 33.3%. However, KPMG predicted in April that Nigeria’s jobless rate might rise to 40.6% by 2023.

In order to address the unemployment rate, he stated the government must go above the norm.

Apprenticeship has been cited as a real method of combating the epidemic due to the rising unemployment rate in the world and Nigeria’s severe unemployment crisis.

It goes without saying that the government must look beyond the ordinary to address the ticking time bomb with a more than 35% unemployment rate and a difficult economy like ours,” he said.

He observed that the topic of apprenticeship had been more widely discussed.

He asserted that there was never a better time for the government to implement a purposeful apprenticeship policy in response to the nation’s pressing problem of rising unemployment.

It is encouraging to see that Nigeria, via a public-private partnership program with the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), is leading the world in promoting apprenticeship and technical and vocational skills training.

“The project with ITF continues to be a model project, providing tens of thousands of Nigerian youngsters with transferable skills and competencies that will make them valued in the industry and contribute to the economy.

The ITF-NECA initiative has also been praised by the ILO as a role model for addressing unemployment and skill gaps in the nation. The conclusion of the ILO’s apprenticeship committee talks further supported the need to emphasize on apprenticeship and skills development.

The creation of a new global labor standard in the form of a recommendation on apprenticeship was undoubtedly well received by the ILO’s members, he added.

Oyerinde demanded that the PPP model and already-established structure of the ITF-NECA be strengthened for greater impact and effect.

In his words, “Deliberate efforts should also be made to encourage more private sector operators to support apprenticeship with incentives that will motivate them to effectively contribute to the success and sustainability of the scheme.”