Until Nigerian youths learn how to be employers rather than employees of labour, who moves endlessly on the streets looking for jobs, the rate of unemployment in the country would not be a thing of history.
According to World Bank report, the unemployment rate in Nigeria, which can be defined as the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force stood at 23.9 percent in 2011, while from 2006 to 2011 Nigeria unemployment rate was at 14.6 percent average reaching an all-time high of 23.9 percent in December of 2011, and a record low of 5.3 percent in December of 2006.
To reduce the growing rate of unemployment in the country, which has pushed a lot of Nigerian youths out to the streets, students while in school are advised to do the following:
• Learn the act of bead making
Bead making is not a difficult thing to learn. All it demands from the would-be bead maker is to spend a little of his or her time and money on learning how to make bead. Some enterprising youths has developed their bead making business into a high profiled jewelry shops. Therefore, while in school utilise a little of your spear time say two hours in a week and you will be marveled at the result you will get. The beauty of this is that, you will not use more than N20, 000 to buy the materials needed to start up the business.
• Save a portion of your pocket money to start-up small business
Some students have the opportunity of receiving monthly allowances from their parents while others receive a token as pocket money on monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly basis. As a students, you are taken care of but upon graduation, your family members will expect you to take care of them whether there is job or not. Therefore, in the current Nigerian scenario, it is very pertinent that you as a student builds a saving culture, and for a start open a savings account with a bank and put about 25 percent of your pocket money into it for the period of four to five years in school.
After school, use the bulk of the money to start-up a decent buying and selling business, so that you can make money for yourself pending when the white collar job comes your way.
• Go for event management training
Do you know how much money people make from managing events for people as well as doing the catering aspect of the event? The event in question could be in the categories of birthday party, weddings, thanksgivings etc. All you need to do as student is to enroll in a six months catering classes and you will be taught how to be an event manager. In doing such business, you will automatically become an employer of labour as it will be required of you to employee people who will do the cooking, venue decorations and others.
• Baking cakes, snacks can keep you out of job market
I know of a woman who had made so much money such that she has built a bungalow for herself and her family as a baker. What she does is to bake cakes, doughnuts, chin-chin, meat pie and other types of snacks, and supplies them to super markets, retail shops, shop and what have you. I think that from all indications that you can surpass your expectations from this business.
• Clothe designing can be the answer
Clothe designing has become a lucrative business in Nigeria such that highly professional designers, who make clothes like suit for minimum of N25,000 in the country are hitting it harder currently. While smaller ones use between N5,000 to N7,000 to make just one cloth. This money serves as the service charge, which excludes the material used for making the cloth. Some of them have device a means of exporting these made-in-Nigeria clothes abroad, and I think you can do same or even better in this line of business.
AMAKA ANAGOR
