Unemployment - a condition where people are actively looking for job, either due to paucity of it or due to dissatisfaction emanating from being employed in a job condition or job profile that's unsuitably below one's present capacity and qualification (underemployment) - is one epidemic that has ravaged and is astro-metrically crushing the fabrics and health infrastructure of Nigeria and Nigerians. According to an online eco-statistical journal, Trading Economics, "Nigeria's unemployment rate, which is a measure of the percentage of Nigeria's labour force that are actively looking for job, rose for the seventh straight quarter to 13.9 percent in the third quarter of 2016 from 13.3 percent in the previous period. It was the highest level since 2009, as the number of unemployed rose by 5.2 percent to 11.2 million, employment rose at a much slower 0.6 percent to 69.5 million and the labour force increased 1 percent to 80.7 million. Meanwhile, youth unemployment rate increased to 25 percent from 24 percent in the previous period. A year earlier, the unemployment rate was recorded at 9.9 percent. Unemployment Rate in Nigeria averaged 9.52 percent from 2006 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 19.70 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 and a record low of 5.10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010."
It is therefore obvious from the above report that unemployment as a leading socioeconomic menace has even become alarming within the very past decade...little wonder the present APC-led administration enjoyed massive vote in the 2015 General election, because they made employment generation or job creation a focal point or thrust of their political manifesto and pronunciamento. Without taking anything away from whatever the past administrations has done, or the present administration is doing to fix the challenge of unemployment, I rather offer this pragmatic, one strike panacea to the immediate, medium and long term challenge of unemployment in Nigeria :
VICTOR'S SOCIOECONOMIC MODEL TO TACKLE UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA
Organising Labour in such a way that make for a compulsory 3-shifts 24 hours working system for all production unit, whether privately owned or government establishment.
This will naturally engender the need for employing additional workers to meet the requirements of a 24hours/3-shifts production system...thus, creating a massive employment opportunities to absorb the teeming unemployed in the society.
It will create an avenue to equitably distribute the scarce wealth/resources amongst an overpopulated population with very little, insignificant or even no additional overhead cost or burden for firm mangers/owners. Those who formerly earn bumper pay packages for working for 10 -15 hours a day will have to now share that largesse and work time with a brother or sister who is equally qualified for the job but have been jobless due to lack of employment opportunities. If the slashed pay is no longer adequate to carry a worker's needs, he or she is encouraged to seek additional jobs in other establishments to make up - that is, one could be working for two or more organizations at different shifts but certainly, doing overtime in any of the firms will be highly prohibited, as this will undermine the chances of another, getting a job, and therefore sabotage the equitable resource redistribution objective of the policy.
The labour flexibility would also encourage students to be able to work vocationally to financially support their studies while workers will be encouraged to vocationally school to improve their work capacities, conditions and profiles. The work flexibility should also be expanded to give room for possibilities of working from home or even from an outside country - in reflection of the transcendent or transient nature or labour culture of our globalized postmodern Society.
As sweet as this improvised labour system is, it is yet not void of it's own challenges. Paramount among any foreseeable obstacle is the challenge of Insecurity. For this system to work perfectly, the government must provide an enabling secured environment, for a 24/7 labour and even living lifestyles. Nevertheless, the system has an inherent remedy to insecurity, as by providing jobs massively to the teeming unemployed youths, the restive criminals will be taken out of crime and live meaningfully and responsibly, thereby reducing crime rate and provide the required secured environment to bud, reenforce and encourage the system.
Contact Postmodernist Victor Nwobike (PVN) Via:
pvnwobike@gmail.com
