The United Nations General Assembly made a resolution in December 2014 by designating July 15 as World Youth Skills Day to improve the socioeconomic circumstances of youth and address the issues of underemployment and unemployment.
Since then, World Youth Skills Day activities have served as a forum for discussion among young people, technical and vocational education and training institutions, enterprises, employers’ organisations, workers’ organisations, development partners, and policymakers to also encourage the abolition of gender discrimination.
The world celebrates World Youth Skills Day on July 15 with the theme ‘Transforming Youth Skills for the Future’ to highlight the strategic value of giving young people the skills they need for employment, entrepreneurship, and work.
This day focused on the crucial part talented youth play in tackling present and upcoming global concerns to offer the abilities needed for self-employment.
Additionally, it makes it easier for businesses and communities to respond to the changing skill demands that drive productivity and income levels. It also lowers the obstacles to entering the workforce through work-based learning while guaranteeing that the acquired abilities are acknowledged and certified.
Skill acquisition is one of the key pillars that supports people in realising their aspirations and providing for those who do not have the opportunity to work with public or private organisations with academic credentials.
The Federal Government of Nigeria implemented a skill acquisition programme through the National Directorate of Employment (NDE). Vocational skills development, entrepreneurship development, agricultural skills training, and public works programmes were the four main intervention areas that the NDE developed to create large numbers of jobs for the unemployed.
The government launched the National Youth Employment and Skills Acquisition Programme to encourage entrepreneurship. The programme offers many opportunities to learn new skills, including hairstyling, computer programming, makeup application, headgear tying, fashion designing, tailoring, catering, mechanical and electrical appliance repair, furniture-making and woodworking, fabrication, and tie-and-dye home management. Skill acquisition is a method renowned for significantly promoting economic development, lowering rates of poverty, insurgency, and crime, increasing the number of available entrepreneurial employment, providing participants with experience and skills, and raising their standard of living.
The government has been working tirelessly to provide youths and learners with technical and vocational skills through both formal and informal channels in all of the states of the federation. They provide the youth with the necessary tools, creating technical colleges, polytechnics, monotechnics, vocational enterprise institutions, innovation enterprise institutions, and model skills training centres.
However, despite the awareness of World Youth Skill Day to boost self-employment and reduce unemployment in the country, Nigeria continues to experience an increase in unemployment and underemployment coupled with the rising population growth in the country.
The population of Nigeria in 2020 was estimated to be 206.1 million, which increased to 216.6 million as of July 2022. The working-age population also maintained an upward trend. The Nigeria working age population, which was 116.8 million in June 2020, increased to over 122 million persons by December that year.
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The Nigerian labour force comprises more than 80 million people, of which almost 23 million people between the ages of 25 and 34 made up the majority of the labor force as of 2020. The second most populous group, with almost 20 million people, is those aged 35 to 44, and the third group falls between the ages of 15-24 years, with nearly 17 million people in the labour force. There was about 13 million labor force between ages 45-54, while people between the ages 55-64 constitute more than 7 million of the entire labour force.
Statistics also show that more than 300,000 young Nigerians are entering the labour market every month, of which 19 percent are already mothers or pregnant with their first child.
In the same vein, the National Bureau of Statistics data show that the unemployment and underemployment rates in the country continued to experience an upward trend. The unemployment rate rose to 33.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, and the underemployment rate was 22.8 percent. Youth unemployment was 42.5 percent, and youth underemployment accounted for 21 percent in the country.
However, higher unemployment does not necessarily mean more job losses. Instead, a rise in unemployment may be brought on by several factors, with the loss of a current job being only one. A surge in unemployment typically indicates that more people are looking for work. This could be due to people who were previously not employed (such as students or non-working homemakers) deciding to enter the workforce and looking for a job, or it could be due to people who were employed previously but are now looking for work.
Busayo Aderounmu is an economist and researcher.
