Did you know Unemployment is a universal curse? Unfortunately, it is an everyday normality in many countries. The economic welfare of any nation relies on the rate at which the economy grows. There are various factors or determinants for economic growth of a country. They include employment, population, agriculture, and industrialization just to mention a few. One major determinant that is used to gauge if the economy of a country is growing is the employment rate since it has an adverse effect on a country's economy as a whole. Whenever a country has high employment rate the productivity of the country increases thereby improving the living standards of people in the country. If a country has a high unemployment rate, it is more likely to have social and economic problems. Economic problems lead to fall in GDP rate, loss of tax revenues, less distribution of income and less production of services and goods. Social problems lead to social evils and depict consequence on individuals psychologically and financially. When the unemployment rate is high in a country people are not able to meet financial responsibilities on time and therefore, they end up getting stressed and eventually suffer from problems like subsidies, premature deaths, and ill-health. One of the country with a high unemployment rate in the world is Nigeria. Nigeria has a population of over 200 million and close to half of its population is unemployed and live in abject poverty. Youths are the most affected age group of Nigeria’s population that faces high unemployment rate. Almost two-thirds of the youths in Nigeria are unemployed and as a result, they have ended up indulging in illegal activities like theft, prostitution and consuming drugs. Nigeria’s economic growth has reduced drastically over the years because the potential most productive age group of the population is not utilized to the maximum. The paper will analyze the unemployment in Nigeria and how it affects the economy of the country, the information on this paper will help investors know the state of the economy of Nigeria.
Since time independence the population of Nigeria has been increasing steadily and drastically and in 2018 the population of Nigeria has been approximated to be over 200 million. Experts estimated that by the end of the century the population of Nigeria would have surpassed that of USA ( Asaju, Arome & Anyio, 2014) . The government of Nigeria is the one that is responsible for the catastrophe that the country is facing currently. The government had no proper planning in place that would cater for the ever-increasing population, there were no drastic measures that ensured jobs for the population.
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The graph above shows underemployment rate versus unemployment rate. It is evident from the graph that the rate of the unemployment rate is more than half that of underemployment. It implies that more than half of Nigeria’s population are unemployed ( Nwoye, Chukwunonso & Emmanuel, 2015) .
The above graph depicts the ever-increasing unemployment rate that Nigeria faces from 2014 to 2017.
To address the catastrophe of unemployment that Nigeria faces it is important to know the factors that contribute to the high unemployment rate in Nigeria. The following are factors that cause unemployment in Nigeria.
1. Epileptic Electric Power Supply
The insufficient power supply is one of the main factors that cause unemployment in Nigeria. Electricity is the backbone of any industrialized country. Many investors prefer the countries that have sufficient electricity. Investors analyze the cost of production before investing in a country and if the cost of production is high they would invest elsewhere. Also, investors prefer countries that have a stable and reliable power supply, this is because they want to cut on the loss that company will experience due to the unreliable power supply. Nigeria is not able to guarantee investors constant power supply and that has scared investors away from the country. Nowadays, many businesses use generators as a source of electricity, this is an expensive venture that scares the investors ( Odusola & Obadan, 2018) .
In addition, the local companies are affected by the unreliable power supply. Many local companies have found it difficult to run their business based on the generators and have been forced to close their business and render many employees jobless hence reducing the revenue that the country earns n ( Ogbimi, 2015) .
2. Poor Quality of Education
Each year, several students graduate from the colleges and the universities in Nigeria with little or nothing to contribute to their community. Asaju et al. 2015 observed that approximately two hundred thousand alumnae graduate from colleges each year, however, few of them are able to secure jobs after graduating. The universities and colleges in Nigeria are ill-equipped with instructors, lectures and leaning facilities hence the student receive poor services and knowledge. For this reason, many graduates come out of the tertiary institutions half-baked, deprived of practical background to make a good impact to the community they live in. Also, they are not able to justify the certificate they are holding. As a result, the unemployment rate of the country increases every year ( Nwoye et al. 2015) . When the country has below average workforce the economy will suffer because the creativity and innovation will be minimal.
Lack of Skills
The issue of poor education lies in tandem with the lack of skills. The latter is another problem that is attributed to unemployment in Nigeria.
Through the years, the youth have shunned the importance of skill acquisition due to the retrogressive mentality that pursuit of skills is a waste of time and has no tangible outcome. They as resorted to seeking the ‘white-collar’ jobs and the allure of easy ways of making money. Consequently, the youth through the generations have become less-skilled and liabilities not only to themselves but also to others.
Conventionally, a person endowed with the appropriate skills has a lower probability of being unemployed. Skills come with an advantage of adaptability to changes in situations and the environment, and one can easily find ways to make ends meet thereby providing for self and their household as required.
To mitigate the problem of unemployment due to the lack of required skills, engineering graduates in the various fields have to rethink their propensity on hands-on skills and get attached to technical workshops as a way of acquainting themselves with the practical knowledge. This will be a great plus for them in relation to employment and will greatly help reduce the unemployment crisis in Nigeria ( Odusola & Obadan, 2018) .
3. Negligence of Agriculture and Other Natural Resources
Resource exploitation and utilization in Nigeria in the recent years has declined. This is attributed to the craze for ‘oil money’ by both the government and the citizens. Consequently, all attention has been directed to the oil fields, and the other industries left neglected. In the previous years, Agriculture and other natural resources served as the powerhouse on which both the Federal and Regional Governments thrived. Cocoa, groundnut, and rubber productions formed the backbone of industries in Western, Northern and Midwestern Nigeria respectively, while coal was predominant in Eastern Nigeria ( Nwoye et al. 2015) .
This however changed with the discovery of the lucrative oil mines. As a result of this shift in focus, employment opportunities that were dependent on the other resources dwindled. The high number of youth seeking opportunities in the oil fields has caused an increase in the unemployed to opportunities ratio.
4. Corruption
Conventionally, corruption entails a vast range of actions that result in undeserved favors and misuse of public resources. These actions include but are not limited to embezzlement of public funds, bribery or the misuse of public funds by the government o individuals for personal and selfish gains ( Nwoye et al. 2015) .
Nigeria is ranked 8 th most corrupt country in the world corruption index. At the same time, the unemployment rate in the country is ceiling. This points out to the direct correlation between corruption and unemployment. When a lot of public funds is embezzled and misappropriated, the result is an allocation of insufficient funds to run the legitimate government projects, the creation of employment opportunities being key among them ( Ogbimi, 2015) .
Another direct implication of corruption in unemployment is selfishness on the part of the government or employer. As such, jobs that would otherwise be allocated to multiple people are given to one individual. The person is however paid salaries that the multiple people would have been paid. The employment opportunity is thereby reduced with the wage bill kept intact.
In an almost similar fashion, reports of ‘ghost workers’ have alarmingly been on the rise in the recent past. Non-existent people have been found in government parastatals’ payrolls, resulting in an undue floated wage bill. This extra money allocated to the ‘ghost workers’ have always been channeled to the pockets of high ranking government officials ( Odusola & Obadan, 2018) .
In conclusion, Unemployment has become a pain in the neck for many countries and negatively affects the society and the economy. It is imperative to assess the exact extent of the unemployment situation in the country. This could be done by first conducting a survey and documenting the unemployment rates for each career and age groups. The governments play a pivotal role in dealing with this crisis and should develop suitable strategies and policies on the issue. Both the public and private sector employers have a responsibility of providing sufficient job information through the social and mainstream media to all public regardless of regional differences.
References
Asaju, K., Arome, S., & Anyio, S. F. (2014). The rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria: the socio-economic and political implications. Global Business and Economics Research Journal , 3 (2), 12-32.
Nwoye, U. J., Chukwunonso, E., & Emmanuel, E. C. (2015). Translation of Nigeria Economic Performance on the Nation's Unemployment Terrain: Effects and Implications.
Odusola, A., & Obadan, M. (2018). Productivity and unemployment in Nigeria.
Ogbimi, F. E. (2015). Solution to mass unemployment in Nigeria (No. 1). Society for Linking Education and Problems.
