A threat worse than Boko Haram

Treat the youths right Instead of giving us a fight Treat the youths right Or you’ll been playin’ with dynamite. – Jimmy Cliff A Nigerian born today has twice the probability of being unemployed during his life time than the average human being. Our women and youth have even worse odds. Globally, the unemployed number […]

Treat the youths right
Instead of giving us a fight
Treat the youths right
Or you’ll been playin’ with dynamite. – Jimmy Cliff

A Nigerian born today has twice the probability of being unemployed during his life time than the average human being. Our women and youth have even worse odds. Globally, the unemployed number some 201 million people, or 5.9 percent of those able, willing and actively seeking for work; our unemployed number 9.5 million, or 12.1 percent of our potential work force.
Preoccupied, in the last couple of days, with the increase of the price of petrol from N87 to N145 per litre, most of us probably missed these facts which came out of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) release of its most recent figures. The implications are frightening. It is now more obvious that our already terrible unemployment situation is getting worse; the youth are much worse off because more than 60 percent of them are without jobs, and their numbers are rising ominously.
This 12.1 percent national unemployment figure is way above the Sub-Saharan African average and worse than all our neighbours. Benin Republic has 1.0 percent. Niger, Cameroon, Ghana, Togo, Central African Republic and Chad have unemployment rates of 2.3, 4.0, 5.2, 6.9, 7.6 and7.8 respectively. Some may even doubt the estimate for Nigeria, and even accuse government officials of manipulating the data, but let us try to understand what these figures represent. Official unemployment figures clearly tell only half of the story. What does 12.1 percent actually mean?
Employment and unemployment statistics are not calculated on the basis of total population. They are based on the “economically active population” or working age population, meaning persons within ages 15- 64 years. This excludes school age children and those aged 65 and above. For Nigeria, this working age population is about 106 million.
From this 106 million we should subtract those who are “out of the work force”, amounting to some 27.5 million. These are “persons within the economically active or working age population who decided not to work for various reasons and consequently are not part of the labour force and cannot be technically considered unemployed or underemployed, even though they were not working”. Thus, “voluntary full time housewives, underage children 14 and below, adults above 65, full time students, those in active military service, physically challenged and incapacitated persons whose disabilities prevent them from working” are not included as unemployed . If you have grown tired of actively searching for a job you are not considered as unemployed, even though you do not have a job. They are out of the labour force.
Effectively, therefore, the labour force population (i.e. those within the working age population willing, able and actively looking for work) is about 78.4 million persons between January to March 2016. Of this figure, 9.5 million represent those not working at all; the unemployed. We needed to create 1.5 million jobs to maintain unemployment just at the rate it was at the end of December 2015, but we could not. Worse still, if we add those who are underemployed, defined as “those working but doing largely menial work or jobs not commensurate with their qualifications or not fully engaged and merely working for few hours” meaning less than 20 hours a week, during the review period, the situation becomes more alarming. About 15 million fall under this underemployed category. Which means some 24.5 million (out of a work force of 78.4 million) were defined as either unemployed or engaged in some menial part-time jobs during the period. If we add the 27.5 million we had earlier termed “out of the work force”, who chose not to work or are tired of searching for one, we can see that out of a working age population of 106 million, half are either not working, are tired of searching for work, or are engaged in temporary menial jobs for pittance. The situation is worse among the youth and women. With many more earning less than a decent wage, and defining themselves as unemployed because they are “just managing” the jobs they now have, we can confidently say more than 60 percent are hoping for a better, higher paying job. This is clearly an unstable and unsustainable situation.
To even maintain the current level of unemployment we need to create about 1.5 million new jobs a year, against the 150,000 to 200,000, which is the best estimate of our performance at present. With a population expanding at about 4.0 million annually and eventually entering the labour market, and to cater for those presently without jobs, we should aim at creating 4 to 5 million new jobs annually to bring our unemployment down to the Sub-Saharan Africa’s average of 4 percent, if we are to avoid a social explosion.
So, forget the fuel price increase. Yes, the government could have done a better job of preparing us for the sudden announcement and it is definitely going to add to our already difficult existence. Yet we can live with it if it is well handled. The real problems are joblessness and low incomes. Our inadequate and inappropriate approach to these is destroying families and communities, while threatening our national security.
More intriguing is the context within which we have failed to provide the needed employment opportunities. We were only able to provide an abysmally low number of jobs annually when the economy was growing at over 7 percent per annum for almost a decade, and we were getting over US$100 per barrel for our crude oil. The situation is now different. The economy grew by about 2.7 percent in 2015, and is projected to rise by just 2.3 percent this year. Oil is fluctuating around US$30-40 per barrel. Oil and gas pipelines are being blown up with disturbing regularity by groups bent on disrupting oil flows, crippling refineries, and denying power plants the fuel they need to provide us with electricity. Jonathan and co failed to pay our share of production costs of the Joint Ventures and Production Sharing Agreements with the oil companies and subsequently our output and exports are suffering. The National Assembly cannot get its acts together and pass the Petroleum Industry Bill. The Naira is collapsing and investments are drying up. So, as the joblessness and poverty time bomb ticks what are our options? We shall take these issues up next week, God willing.