According to the Federal Government’s Industrial Training Fund, unemployment and underemployment rates in Nigeria have been rising daily and must be halted because they are a ticking time bomb.
In order to prevent an economic disaster, the ITF Director-General, Joseph Ari, who made this announcement in Abuja, encouraged the private sector and other stakeholders to collaborate with the federal and state governments to stop this unwelcome increase.
Ari gave a speech in front of a group led by the newly appointed Director-General of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, Adewole Oyerinde, at the fund’s Abuja headquarters.
In reference to figures on unemployment and underemployment brought up by Oyerinde at the meeting, the ITF director replied,
“My colleague has reeled out the numbers in terms of percentage of the unemployment rate in our country.
“And it is rising by the day. Rising on account of the booming population, which is youth-based. Also, our tertiary institutions have continued to churn out these young men and women. So we need to do something fast because we are sitting on a time bomb.”
Ari mentioned that the ITF was cooperating with NECA on the Technical Vocational Education and Training to stop the rise in unemployment and underemployment in Nigeria as one of the primary strategies used by the ITF to address the problem.
He spoke: “The ITF has been at the forefront of advocating the need for Nigerians to be availed with Technical Vocational Education and Training. The essence is that this is one component that will largely address the issues of unemployment and under-employment.
“Our studies with the NECA team have availed us the opportunity to understand what goes on in other climes of the world, particularly those ones that are adjudged as the first world powers.
“They leverage on Technical Vocational Education and Training and it is the direction to go, hence, they are where they are. So, the ITF decided to draw the attention of Nigerians to embrace TVET as the only way that we will address the unemployment saga to a large extent in our nation.”
The ITF president claimed that if more public and private sector organizations adopted TVET, Nigerians would have access to skills.
“This is needed now more than before because the white-collar jobs are either unavailable or not even in existence,” he stated.
The NECA boss had earlier claimed that given Nigeria’s present unemployment and underemployment statistics, the country was in a crisis.
In order to solve this issue, Oyerinde had also urged stakeholders to participate in the TVET program.
“Our coming onboard in the partnership with ITF is to deepen and expand our collaboration in whatever complex that we can.
“With over 33 per cent unemployment rate and another close to 20 per cent underemployment rate, we all know that we are really in a crisis situation within the context of employment and this project has proven to be a panacea.”
