Others including You
Win that was launched in 2011 specifically to generate jobs by
encouraging and supporting aspiring entrepreneurial youth in Nigeria to
develop and execute business ideas that will lead to job creation; while
the National University Commission (NUC) introduced Entrepreneurial
Studies as a compulsory course called “Graduates Self-Employment†(GSE
301) into universities curriculum in 2004 to enable university graduates
to become self-employed. Yet, there is still the high rate of
unemployment, especially among the Nigerian university graduates. Even,
the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2008 acknowledged that about 80
percent of Nigeria’s youth are unemployed and 10 percent underemployed
(Daily Trust, 2008).
Oyesiku (2010) reported that available
statistics show that the nation’s job creation capacity is growing at an
annual rate of five percent and seven percent over the last seven
years. Meanwhile, about 213 Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of
Education in the country then produced over 300,000 graduates annually; a
number that should ordinarily meet the country’s human capital resource
needs, but employers willing to pay well to attract skilled workers are
increasingly finding it difficult to fill the job vacancies. Federal
Office of Statistic (2012) also reported that with the current
unemployment rate at 23.9 percent and unemployed youth population put at
20.3 million, Nigeria generated about 4.5 million new entrants into the
labour market annually.
The Nigeria’s strong economic
performance over the last decade has not translated to jobs and real
life opportunities for its youth. Akanmu (2011) asserted that three out
of ten graduates of tertiary institutions cannot find work and being
highly educated does not increase the chance of finding a job. Those who
find work are not usually gainfully employed; some are forced to accept
marginal jobs that do not use their qualifications in sales,
agriculture and manual labour while employers are often looking for
skills that go beyond qualifications and experience. Apart from the
sluggish growth rate of the Nigerian economy, it lacks the structural
and transformation capacity that is sufficient to expand employment for
the long bloated labour market. In other words, whatever growth that
takes place in Nigeria is not labour intensive and as such cannot
generate a commensurate proportion of jobs for the unemployed graduates.
Therefore, the Nigerian society today is facing challenges of getting
the education that will deliver to the students the right set of skills
and knowledge demanded by the labour market. The reality on the ground
is that university education should turn out students who are ready to
fill available jobs in the marketplace. The National Universities
Commission (2004) affirmed that massive unemployment of Nigerian
university graduates in the country is traceable to the disequilibrium
between labour market requirements and essential employable skills by
the graduates. However, contention exists regarding what exactly
constitute what employers are requiring from graduates in the labour
market. It is against this background that the researcher is interested
in investigating the influence of labour demand on university graduates’
employability in North-West, Nigeria.
Statement of the Problem
The issue of graduate employability has become a worrisome trend in
the Nigeria labour market. It has become a serious concern to
stakeholders (like employers of labour, training institutions, parents
and graduates). The Nigerian Employers Consultative Association, (NECA)
(2005) expressed that companies were not recruiting but adopting
employment protection strategies due to the very poor quality graduates
who do not meet demands of industries. Therefore, Chiacha and Amaechi
(2013) carried out a study on entrepreneurship education and graduate
employability in Nigeria. They found out that the entrepreneurial
education currently offered in schools did not lead to high
employability index of graduates. Also, Pitan & Adedeji (2012)
examined the problem of skills mismatch and its prevalence in the
Nigeria labour market. The study discovered that university graduates
were not adequately prepared for work with respect to skills demand of
the labour market.
In spite of these findings, the challenge of
graduate employability still persists in Nigeria. National Bureau of
Statistics (2011) reported that the rate of unemployment in Nigeria was
high The report revealed that the North-west recorded highest rate of
unemployment with 25.40%, followed by South-west with 21.56%, North-east
with 16.47%, South-south was 12.03% while North-central had the lowest
with 11.60%. This situation became more alarming in the third quarter of
2014 where North-west recorded 30.0%, North-east 23.9%, North-central
15.1%, South-east 8.9%, South-west 8.9% and South-south 18.7%
(Ajaiyakaye, 2016).
Based on the persistence and high rate of
unemployment in Nigeria, this study placed specific emphasis on the
North-west, Nigeria not only because of the increase in the rate of
crimes and insurgencies but also based on the report that the North-west
recorded the highest rate of unemployment of 30.0% as at the third
quarter of 2014 (Ajaiyakaye, 2016). This is traceable to a mismatch
between labour market demand and employability skills of graduates.
Therefore, a gap exists between what is taught in school and the skills
required to perform a job. This gap, Kayode (2009) expressed, is
responsible for a high percentage of young graduate unemployment. The
researcher, therefore, considers it highly essential to carry out a
study on labour market demand and university graduate employability
skills in North-west, Nigeria.
