A senior researcher at the Economic Policy Research Department of the Institute, Dr. Foluso Adeyinka, has advised federal government to create employment opportunities in the country.
Adeyinka stated this in a paper at its monthly seminar entitled “Job Creation in Nigeria: Short and Long Term Options” of the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), Ibadan.
According to Adesina, there is the need for the country to urgently achieve poverty reduction and sustainable economic and social development by carrying out a comprehensive audit of job-creation agencies in the country.
Specifically, the senior researcher advocated immediate refocusing of school curriculum from secondary school level across the nation, saying that “this became necessary in view of the urgent need to arrest the unprecedented high rate of youth unemployment in the country, as well as to serve as short-term options to address job creation in Nigeria.”
Adesina added that there could not be a smooth transformation from an agrarian economy to an industrial one that will make more jobs available without reliable and affordable infrastructure, especially power.
In his remarks, Director-General of NISER, Prof. Olufemi Taiwo, blamed the high rate of unemployment in the country on undue over dependence on imports to the detriment of locally-made products, adding that “18.9 million people are unemployed in Nigeria as 12.6 million youths are not gainfully employed while a total of 5.2 million people are not working at all.”
