By Shile GIWA
Nigeria’s unemployment crises again reared its ugly head as 25. 6 million applications were received by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as at Tuesday, when the corporation’s application portal was closed.
A source familiar with the recruitment process told Daily Sun that the 25.6 million application figure was mind boggling and that Government should do all it can to address the challenge of unemployment.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that the country’s unemployment rate worsened in the third quarter of 2018 (Q3,2018), rising from 18.8 per cent in Q3 2017 to 23.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2018, the labour report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has shown.
The NBS data revealed further that the total number of people classified as unemployed-which means they did nothing at all or worked for a few hours (under 20 hours a week) rose from 17.6 million in Q4 2017 to 20.9 million in Q3 2018.
On March 13, 2018, NNPC began massive recruitment drive to fill various positions at the graduate trainee senior officer, supervisory and managerial cadres with the opening of its recruitment portal.
Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of NNPC, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, had said the move was part of efforts to enhance productivity.
Commenting, Team Lead, PwC, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, said the combination of unemployment and underemployment figures is in the region of about 40 per cent, adding that some of the applicants are already employed but seek better opportunities.
He maintained that not until Government begin to take practical steps to grow the Micro Small Medium Enterprises(MSMEs) the over 40 million unemployed youth figure will continue to ballon.
He said there are over 30 million MSMEs in Nigeria, stating that with the right monetary policies and access to finance and vocational training which may enable one MSME to employ one person which translates to 30 million jobs
He said NNPC may not employ up to one per cent of the application received which he said may be about 1,000 people or less, stressing that the remaining number returns to the labour market.
‘‘We hope that NNPC deploys merit because in the absence of that, you see all manner of list coming from politicians and the big men in Nigeria taking up the slots and at the end of the day, the purpose would have been defeated,’’ he said.
For his part, Managing Director Cowry Assets Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, said the figure should not surprise Nigerians because the public sector has not carried out a major recruitment exercise in the last four years, hence the pressure on NNPC.
He said a rise in the country’s unemployment figure from 18.8 percent in 2017 to 23.1 in 2018, translating to about 80 million unemployed youths could have been responsible for the NNPC application figure.
He said if social engagements like Big Brother Africa could be recorded figures in millions, then that tells what would happen in Government jobs, alluding to the stampede during the immigration recruitment.
He said what Government should be doing to address the challenge of infantile and mediocre growth which led to a growth rate of 1.92 percent in 2018 against population growth of 2.8 per cent is clearly an indication of a bad economic situation.
He said to reduce the unemployment figure, Nigeria needs to grow the economy at about 10 percent, by coming up with specific industrial policy which will aid growth.
Chukwu advised that a lot of jobs could be created in the oil and gas sector, saying Nigeria has no business creating jobs for people in other countries by importing petroleum products.
He argued that the entire value chain in the oil and gas sector was capable of creating millions of jobs which will include the refinery and the petrochemical industry
Meanwhile, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, has said that the Second Phase of the recruitment exercise involving short listing of qualified candidates had started, explaining that the qualified ones among them would be invited to participate in a computer-based aptitude tests.
Ughamadu said that tests would be administered in about 50 centres across the country, saying those who emerge successful in the tests would subsequently be invited for oral interviews for final selection.
