The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), a leading think-tank in the country, has advised the Federal, state and local governments and the organized private sector (OPS) to create at least 27 million new formal jobs in order to avoid the nation’s unemployment and underemployment rate hitting to 30 per cent within the next five years
The economic think-tank group, in its just published ‘Jobs and Productivity Report’, gave the advice on the sidelines of its 31st Summit held in Abuja, describing the next half-decade for Nigeria as a crucial to stabilising the labour market and achieving sustainable and inclusive growth in the country.
The NESG noted: “With the working-age population projected to reach 168 million by 2030, the country faces a defining challenge: to create 27 million new formal jobs or risk unemployment and underemployment rates doubling to 30 per cent. Jobs and productivity are central to Nigeria’s economic development.”
It cautioned that failure to generate tens of millions of formal roles would leave the economy unable to absorb its rapidly expanding youth cohort, adding that “achieving this will be crucial to absorbing new entrants into the labour market and gradually transitioning workers currently engaged in low-productivity, informal jobs.”
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The NESG identified several obstacles to employment creation in the country to sundry factors, including a shallow private sector base, skills mismatch, a weak education system, and jobless growth patterns that have limited the capacity of industries to absorb Nigeria’s growing youth population.
This is even as the group, in the report highlighted regulatory bottlenecks and infrastructure deficits as major constraints to business competitiveness and advised the government to implement comprehensive reforms to unlock private sector-led growth.
To reverse the ugly trend, the group advocated the need for coordinated action across government and industry, identifying the manufacturing, agriculture, digital technology and services sectors as key to generating large-scale employment for the country if supported by the right policies.
It canvassed: “Key sectors that should drive formal job creation include manufacturing (including agro-processing), construction, information and communications technology (ICT) and professional services.
“These sectors have the capacity to absorb labour from low-productivity sectors and drive the country’s structural transformation process. Collectively, they are expected to contribute to 35% (9.7 million) of new formal jobs, while manufacturing alone will account for 21% of new jobs created during the period.
“Nigeria must address the problems of low productivity and weak private sector growth in a coordinated and sustained manner.
“More urgent than ever, Nigeria needs a Jobs and Productivity Agenda to create decent jobs and raise productivity across the economy.
“The success of this agenda will depend on stakeholder collaboration, robust data architecture, continuous monitoring and evaluation and, more importantly, a firm commitment by the government to implement key reforms”, the NESG added.
This is even as the group also detailed a Nigeria Works Framework built on six strategic pillars, including “Skills for Productivity, Sectoral Engines of Job Growth, Enterprise-Led Growth, Data, Institutions and Accountability, and Productivity for Prosperity and interventions, as needed to create more jobs and achieve improved performance of the economy.
