Nigeria’s High Unemployment Rate ‘Indefensible’ – Labour Minister

• Nigeria’s unemployment rate is pegged at some 23.2 million people, the highest in at least 13 years, and the second-highest rate in the world

Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has said that Nigeria’s 33 per cent unemployment figure is indefensible and that the situation has been compounded by the COVID-19 scourge.

According to Keyamo, the government-run special public works that targets paying 774,000 young people monthly stipends to ameliorate unemployment may have been hijacked for political patronage in many states.

He said this at the weekly ministerial briefing organised by the presidential communication team on Thursday.

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“The unemployment figures are indefensible. The 33 per cent was compounded more by the COVID scourge, the whole world is reeling.

“So it will be very short-sighted of us as a government, very myopic, very, like wrong game approach to think that we want to live out of poverty and create employment by opening up gaps in the civil service to employ people. How many are we going to employ for the 33 per cent? That’s so high.

“So we need to react more innovatively to create employment. And for us, we are working very hard to ensure that we skill up Nigerians. The way to approach employment is to skill up the populace,” he said.

The Minister said the way out to encourage the small, macro small and medium scale entrepreneurs is to support their businesses, ensure that people are self-employed, skill them up.

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“That’s what the NPower is doing. In NPower, whether you are a graduate or not, go and learn a skill so that you can be self-employed and feed yourself.

“Those are employment we are creating; those people who are skilling up,” he said.

According to him, the president is very serious about the issue of lifting 100 million people out of poverty in the next 10 years.