Youth Un(der)employment and Employability Skills in the 21st Century Public Service by ISGPP Graduate Programs Unit

The National Bureau of Statistics estimates that no less than 81.15 million Nigerians, most of whom are in the public sector, are currently engaged as active workers all over the country, being an achievement of a 0.6% increase in the labour force since Q4 2016. Interestingly, there is still a massive pool of unemployed or might we say, ‘unemployable’ graduates which spills over the projected quota of workers that may possibly be accommodated within the public service space in Nigeria. A statement from the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria last year estimates that about 70 percent of the 80 million youths in Nigeria are either unemployed or underemployed. In a situation where only an estimated six million people enter the labour market annually in a country with over 180 million people and an annual population growth rate of 2.3 percent, job creation and unemployment will ultimately present one of the major obstacles to Nigeria's sustainable development ambitions. As a matter of fact, there is a growing bulge of un(der)employment in almost all parts of the country, one which suggests that the several well-meant job creation and employment schemes put in place by the government are barely enough to address the problem. Unfortunately, young persons and their families are often the worst hit by this lack of options presented for gainful employment and sustainable livelihoods which does not portend well for National development.

Nigeria’s unemployment challenges also point to larger failures to invest its human resources in ways that unlock the country’s economic growth potential especially at the elementary stages of educational development and manpower training. On the other hand, Nigeria possesses a large chunk of states, that are economically nonviable no thanks to the unproductive logic of federal dependency and unguarded institutional multiplication in government MDAs. Central to these troubles however is the herculean task of building Nigeria’s marginal productivity base to balance the rate of investment in labour recruitment with tangible return on investment. It is no news that the government is the largest single employer of labour and provider of services in the economy, limiting the options available to youths. It is also a truism that the average output of the Nigerian workforce reflects a low percentage when compared to the amount of recurrent resources consumed yearly on labour. Since no country can advance beyond the capability and productivity of its public service, it would be saner for the Nigerian government to harness tax resources for scouting and building the capacity of skilled workers to achieve increased efficiency rather than mining the fast-depleting reservoir of national revenue for unsustainable social welfare schemes.

Any attempt at reforming the national employment and productivity framework should therefore pay close attention to the underlying cause – dearth of critical service skills needed for national transformation, rather than paying token lip-service to the symptoms. This rethinking and prioritization of strategies to be deployed for national development must include policy product and process-oriented capacity building for policy makers, public managers and other major stakeholders including new entrants in the public sector. In addition, certain core skills which are inalienable for a 21st century public work space should be incorporated in the staff development schedule of corporate and government organisations. Such skills will normally include but not limited to: problem solving using methodical and organised approaches; ability to research, interpret and evaluate numerical data; sensitivity to the values and interests of others in the society; strategic communication and report writing; teamwork; proficiency in the use of information technology; analytical forecasting and crisis management. Without a drastic overhaul of the current public employment regime and a creation of a national policy framework that institutionalizes the development of these skills by youths and transposes the acquisition of such into the drive for job creation and employment generation at all levels of government, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to address the widening labour gap in the public sector which could result in succession crisis and wastage of public resources.