A new report released by Jobberman Nigeria has indicated that over 60 percent of unemployed youth in the Northeast have been without work for at least three years, while an estimated one in every five unemployed youth has been without a job within the same period.
According to the Jobberman Nigeria report 2022, over 65 percent of 2,228 respondents engaged during the research said they were unemployed, indicating that about one in every five unemployed youth has been without work for more than five years.
About 22 percent has been without work between three and five years, while 34 percent and 27 percent have had no job for at least a year and less than a year, respectively.
According to the report, each geopolitical zone in the country has its dreadful expression of unemployment disease, indicating that young people in the Northeast and Northwest regions are predisposed to longer unemployment durations compared to other regions of the country.
Accordingly, less than one percent of unemployed youth receive support from the government and religious institutions.
The report also indicated that unemployed women are less likely to hustle and more likely to depend on their partners compared to men.
“We need to separate ourselves from this idea that once I get the job, something gets solved. Once you get the job; you’re starting a whole new world out there,” Abubakar Suleiman, CEO, Sterling Bank, said in a keynote address at the unemployment roundtable discussion organised by Jobberman in conjunction with the MasterCard Foundation.
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Themed, ‘How do young people survive without jobs’, Suleiman said that there is a need for young people to see their work as a process of value creation. According to him, the job is a tool and not an end.
“The job is not a destination; it is a means of getting somewhere. What needs to happen is for us to create a new system. Because sometimes it sounds as if the job is a destination. I want to get a job and I’m done. But the job is not the destination,” he said.
Hilda Kragha, CEO, The Africa Talent Company (parent company of Jobberman), said women culturally get some empathy as opposed to men, who have been taught and programmed to be breadwinners and take care of their family.
According to her, women also hustle as much as men, but their hustle is often unseen because of cultural biases against women.
“We did some research last year around barriers to women in the workplace; there are many things we saw: The big one is a cultural aspect. If I’m going to go into a job, what happens to my family,” she said.
Ore Boboye, CEO, Jobberman, said the report indicated that ‘hustle’ is the major means of survival for unemployed youth in Nigeria. Accordingly, about 78 percent of unemployed youth depend on family and friends to survive.
According to him, unemployment and its effects remain the most significant issue young people have to deal with in Nigeria today. “From being labelled as ‘unemployable’ to the low rate of job creation, the unemployment statistics are only a lagging indicator of the realities of millions of Nigerian youth across all geopolitical zones of the country”.
