NIGERIAN YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
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NIGERIAN YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Youth unemployment has long been a serious economic problem in society, notably in Nigeria as a whole.
It is an emergency in some underdeveloped countries, where it previously did not appear to exist. It impacts hundreds of millions of people worldwide, many of whom are mothers and fathers for two-thirds of all citizens. It treats people as if they are number one, causing social disease.
It is also one of the primary causes of many young people becoming involved in illicit activities such as drug dealing. Advance fee fraud (419) disturbs the sleep of millions and affects millions more. It might be right around the corner.
According to Encyclopaedia America volume 27 (1974), unemployment is a state in which a person wishes to work but does not have a job. It is a structural problem in which the economy’s output capacity is considerably below the level of absorbing available personnel. Unemployment can also refer to persons who are willing and able to work but cannot find acceptable job.
Unemployment, according to ADRIAN SINFIELD, devalues or lowers the standard or quality of life in society. He expands on this in the following ways:
The workforce would be unable to leave unsatisfied or unsatisfactory occupations for fear of not being able to find another, resulting in an increase in the number of frustrated and alienated people.
Societal divisions are expected to widen. Unemployed people and those with inadequate or unsatisfying jobs may blame their issues on weak groups in society. Immigrants and ethnic minorities may be used as scapegoats, raising racial tensions.
Sinfield feels that rising unemployment reduces the possibilities of achieving equality of opportunity.
According to John Lea and Jock Young, youth unemployment leads to the marginalisation of some sections of society since those who are unemployed believe they have a stake in society. They lack the institutional mechanisms to express their unhappiness because they are not members of any union.
According to “Sheila Allen and Alan Watson,” academicians, politicians, and journalists have made links between unemployment and a wide range of social problems, including ill health, premature death, attempted and actual suicide, marriage breakdown, child battering, racial conflict, and football hooliganism.
If we look critically, we can see that all of these problems are being caused by unemployment. However, they certainly have societal implications since, while unemployment does not cause or contribute to these problems, it may endanger societal stability by eroding the family and increasing racial friction and criminality.
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), unemployment is possibly the most generally dreaded phenomena of our day.
The breadth and consequences of this phenomena are understood, writes the European Communities Commission, but dealing with it is “auduous,” adds one expert, returning to ridicule the streets of the old continent.
Unemployment is an old problem; individuals have been unemployed involuntarily for millennia. After the job was completed, tens of thousands of individuals employed in huge building projects became unemployed, at least until they found alternative work. To put it mildly, they led a somewhat precarious life in the middle.
During the Middle Ages, “despite the fact that a problem of unemployment in the modern sense did not yet exist,” anyone who did not work was deemed a wanderer. According to Professor Burnelt, many British observers connected the unemployed with roughs and vagrants who slept out or strolled the street at night as late as the 19th century.
The discovery of unemployment “occurred near the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century.” Social commissions, such as the selected committee of the British House of Commons on suffering from lack of employment, were established to research and tackle the problem.
Joblessness has become a social scourge by 1895. The new consciousness increased tremendously, especially after World War I. The conflict, with its frenzied weaponry manufacture, had notably reduced unemployment. However, beginning in the 1920s, the Western world experiences a succession of recessions culminating in the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and affected the entire industrialised world.
Many countries experienced a new economic boom after WWII, and unemployment fell, but the origins of today’s unemployment can be easily traced back to the mid 1960s, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the labour market suffered a new blow caused by the oil crisis of the 1970s and the computerised information explosion with subsequent layoff, unemployment has begun a relentless ascent cutting into even those white colours a Economic classifications of unemployment include frictional, cyclical, and structural unemployment.
Frictional unemployment is not usually regarded as a severe problem because it occurs when a worker changes jobs but does not quickly adapt to the new position.
Structural Unemployment: Generally tends to include as an important aspect, that component of unemployment caused by insufficient means of production in proportion to job availability. Structural unemployment can also develop when jobs are available and workers are looking for work, but the workers do not match the position.
Cyclical Unemployment: In a broad sense, the term encompasses not only cyclical unemployment, but also seasonal unemployment: this is a type of unemployment in which the number of unemployed far outnumbers the number of vacancies throughout the period, indicating that the supply of labour exceeds the demand for workers by employers.
The principles of cyclical unemployment do not indicate that future unemployment will be particularly low. It is critical to recognise that we have both rural and urban unemployment.
Rural employment is the most common kind of underutilization of workers in developing countries. It consists of persons who are doing some job but could do more but are not looking for additional work. It comprises numerous unpaid home employees and family farm workers.
There will be some disguised unemployment if the number of people working on a farm holding is raised but more land is not cultivated. Urban unemployment, on the other hand, takes the shape of conspicuous underemployment, which includes those who work at or below their potential.
If a person is trained yet unable to find work that matches his or her abilities and must settle for unskilled tasks, he or she is clearly underemployed.
Unemployment has affected all areas of the economy in turn. For example, agriculture has increased mechanisation, which knocks people out of work, followed by industry, which has been affected by energy crises since the 1970s, and now, the services sector, commerce, and education, which was previously thought to be untouchable. A rate of unemployment of more than 2% or 3% would have been reason for concern twenty years ago.
Today, an industrialised country does well if unemployment is at 5% or 6%, while many developed countries have higher rates.
Individual drama are the result of the disease that attacks men, women, and unemployment can prove to be a major burden especially if he has been out of work for a long time will it be tough to have a job and unfortunately. Some have never worked again.
Furthermore, the proportion of young men and women who had been out for more than a year appears to have stabilised between April 1985 and May 1986. The number of young people unemployed for three or more years has risen to about 100,000. In addition to tripling total youth unemployment, the young unemployed are being forced to work for longer periods of time.
With the emergence of increased and persistent unemployment among young people, attempts have been made to explain its source. According to Ashton (1987), such explanations were initially sought in demographic shifts in the composition of the working population, and then in the high earnings provided to young workers.
Furthermore, Ashton observes that growth in the supply of young people to the labour market peaked in 1979, prior to the substantial increase in youth unemployment rates in the early 1980s. Thus, an oversupply of young people in the labour market can only account for a portion of the prevalent youth unemployment.
Many years ago, secondary school leavers in Nigeria who had completed their West Africa School Certificate Examination (WASCE) looked ahead to the future with optimism. Such school leavers may find it easier to get work in his or her preferred field, with the possibility of advancement.
He may choose to continue his study or enter any training facility. Unlike the secondary school leaver, the university graduate has a variety of options. The university graduate had the option of entering government service, public cooperation, or a private firm such as a bank.
There have been high job markets for secondary school leavers in the last fifteen years, at least since the 1970s, while university graduates have been hit by unemployment since the 1980s. In fact, the output of secondary schools and universities has suffered as a result of the unemployment situation.
The objective of this study, however, is to discover or investigate the reason as well as a possible remedy to this massive problem that threatens the centre of our nation’s life stream. This research is also being conducted in order to address the issue of youth unemployment.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
One of the key characteristics of urban unemployment in emerging nations is the high proportion of young people impacted. In practically every case, the unemployment rate for the 15-34 age group is equal to or greater than double that of the general population, whose unemployment rate is already heavily influenced by the rate for young people.
The current study is essential since one of the most pressing issues confronting Nigeria in general, and Edo State in particular, is the development of jobs. It is critical that people who are supposed to compose the labour force be able-bodied teenagers between the ages of 15 and 45.
In our country today, those who are affected by this tragedy (unemployment) are primarily young people; those with a secondary school diploma and a university first degree do not have a position in the labour field. Because of the unemployment situation, some young people have become hardened criminals, armed robbers, drug traffickers, football hooligans, marriage breakup, racial conflict, and attempted and actual suicide.
In Edo State, youth unemployment has resulted in the manifestation of violence in society; for example, the Egor People Congress (EPC) members are unemployed youth, as are a major percentage of armed robbers. Youth unemployment has caused a balance deficiency in the general function of Nigeria society, between the ages of 18 and 64, who are supposed to constitute a big percentage of the working population.
whereby the unemployment rate makes it impossible for this demographic to work. The dependent population, which is higher in percentage, will be adequately reimbursed, resulting in mass poverty and low natural income.
IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY
It is significant because it will add to the corpus of knowledge about youth unemployment that already exists.
It is crucial because it will investigate the causes and effects of youth unemployment in Egor Local Government in South Nigeria, presenting visible remedies to the problem.
It will bring to light many factors that contribute to unemployment, presenting policymakers with a potentially useful tool.
It will classify, locate, and verify variables while forming pre-conditions of unemployment, allowing for issue solving.
JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY
This study is supported by its importance in terms of adding to current literature or materials and assisting in the resolution of the societal problem of unemployment.
RESEARCH QUESTION
What exactly is unemployment?
What exactly is youth?
Who is out of work?
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
To identify the primary reasons of youth unemployment in Benin, Nigeria.
To extract the relationship (if any) between the country’s overall economic features and youth unemployment.
To ascertain the efficacy or influence of youth unemployment on the Nigerian industrial sector.
On the one hand, to advise and provide recommendations to policymakers in the country, and on the other side, to the country’s youth.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
In the field of social research, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of ideas, particularly how the study used them operationally. Goode and Halt (1952), on the other hand, characterised concepts as logical creations formed from sense expression, perception, and even familiar complex experience. The investigation would generate the following research concepts for the purposes of this study.
Employment is a technique of obtaining a job or other lucrative employment.
Unemployment: It is crucial to understand that unemployment is not merely the quantity of people who are unemployed. A broad definition would include children who are too young to work, retired pensioners, housewives, and anyone who have chosen not to work. As a result, it is the situation of a person who wants to work but does not have one.
Again, for the purposes of this study, and despite our acknowledgement of many definitions of juveniles in the literature on the subject, we will limit the term to young individuals aged 10 to 30 years. They account for around 65% of Nigeria’s total population. They also make up the vast majority of the country’s labour force.
Unemployment Among Young People: This is the total number of able-bodied youth who are unemployed.
Visible Unemployment: This category includes those who are not working but are looking for job. The numbers engaged may be small, but they may include persons who have completed some schooling but are unable to find acceptable employment.
Residual unemployment is linked to physical and mental deterioration. There is no country without residual unemployment, and no country can reach full employment as a result.
Seasonal Unemployment: This is labour that is engaged temporarily owing to an unfavourable weather situation.
Voluntary Unemployment: When a person decides not to work because the pay is inadequate or because she is a housewife.
Disguised unemployment is the most common type of worker underutilization in developing countries. This frequently happens when a person is overqualified for the job he is doing; it is made up of people who are not looking for extra work.
Mass Unemployment: This is a different sort of unemployment that is related to the business cycle. It is typically characterised by a broad decline in aggregate monetary value. This occurred during a depressive moment.
Structural unemployment occurs when jobs are available and employees are looking for work, but the workers do not match the positions.
There are two kinds of unemployment: temporary and permanent.
Regional: occur when workers do not live in a region with adequate job openings.
Sectoral: Exists where the unemployed person lacks adequate abilities or is not fully qualified.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study will largely target residents of Edo State’s Egor local government area. Thus, it will be a micro research conducted inside the local government to determine the causes and effects of youth unemployment. As a result of my academic commitments, the biggest limitation in this study will be financial limits combined with time constraints.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
Since the colleges of the second republic, youth unemployment in Edo State has been on the rise, accompanied by vices of corruption and austerity. Then there is the rural urban community of Egor Local Government, where industrial activities are not established and the residents are semi-skilled workers, traders, and farmers.
METHODOLOGY
This study is intended to include both unemployed males and females living in Edo State’s Egor Local Government.
I chose these groups of persons in the hopes that their practical experience as unemployed people will provide more helpful information for this research.
The following are the streets:
Uwelu Street
Otawere Avenue No. 1
Ojo Avenue
The Otete Road
The Perfect Way
Otawere Avenue No. 2
Oviasogie Avenue
Iyamu Avenue
Uwasota Highway
Thirty (30) respondents will be chosen from each street, and it should be mentioned that the sampling frame for this study activity is one hundred and twenty (120), which includes the four streets.
1.11 DESIGN OF RESEARCH
However, in order to support the investigation, the research method used in this study is the survey method. A survey is a sort of study in which the researcher selects a sample of respondents to whom questionnaires are provided or the respondents are directly asked questions via questionnaire or verbal interview.
HYPOTHESIS 1.12
Statistical hypotheses can be defined as the assertion of two or more types of hypotheses that will be used.
Unemployment among young people is caused by a lack of education.
The cause of youth unemployment is the industrial recession.
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