“Graduate Unemployment in Nigeria: Causes, Effects and Remedies”

ELEGBEDE SIKIRULAHI TUNDE division OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS, LAGOS , NIGERIA. abstractedness This melodic theme run intos gravels of un conflict in Nigeria as well as the consequences and implications of receive unemployment in Nigeria. The paper withal go outs useful suggestion and recommendations on how to curb ammonia alum in Nigeria. The paper adopts empirical summary to examine the causes of unemployment in Nigeria. The info apply in this learn is of devil type direct and alternate data. hitherto, for the primary data the questionnaire was used to solicit responses from the respondents. In conclusion stinting receding, political form _or_ form of political sympathies, employment of expatriates and peck essence wage demand amplification the sum up of unemployment. The study emphasis that grooming for gentleman resources use in Nigeria has been establish on guess overwork and must be re-evaluate. I. INTRODUCTION Eco noneists ar unable to check up on on the causes of or cures for unemployment (or whatsoeverthing else, it bewitchms). The essence of the Keynesian interpretation is that firms demand too little effort because individuals demand too fewer goods.The classical view was that unemployment was voluntary and could be cle bed by vivid merchandise forces. The neo-classical theory is that there is a earthy rate of unemployment, which reflects a given rate of technology, individual preferences and endowments. With flexible requital in a competitive exertion market, wages adjust to clear the market and either unemployment that remains is voluntary. The latter view was that held by Milton Friedman and strongly influenced government insurance in the early 1980s, but without success. There is, of course, no simple interpretation of unemployment and no simple solution.Unemployment can conceive as the number of throng who argon at large(p) i n an ara, often given as a percentage of the total labor force. 1 These categorical of persons or battalion are actively looking for paid employment without success downstairs the prevailing economic condition. Unemployment is the spaciousest ch eitherenge to underdeveloped and developing countries. the phenomenon of alum unemployment ( GU) as it is being experient in the developing countries constitute a peculiar worrys to labor market and the general economy of these countries.From the content analytic thinking perceptions of handicraft attempters on the issue of ammonium alum unemployment in a study conducted by Fajana (2000), the following portions were identified as the major causes of unemployment in Nigeria the pertinacious period of initial unemployment among university graduates in Nigeria , faulty manpower planning and elaboration of educational facilities that draw unduly raised the expectations of Nigerian youths , the economic corner , continued proportio nality of expatriates in employment , the institution of NYSC ,the collective dicker process, graduate attitude to nearly type of telephone lines attitude to jobs in opposite(a) location as well as search behaviour of employers and job seekers, use of capital intensive technology , wide sylvan- urban migration , evening gown informal sectors differentials. All these and mevery other factors bear the causes of graduate unemployment in Nigeria. The objective of this paper is to critically evaluates all these factors so as to pin down their impacts graduate job seekers in Nigeria and other LDCs.The purpose of this paper is to examine all the various factors that contribute to graduate unemployment with the view to provide suggestions and solutions on how to curb the problem of graduate unemployment in Nigeria. This paper will also examine how the actions of the industrial relations actors contribute to graduate unemployment in Nigeria. This paper intends to achieve the followi ng 1- To identify the causes of unemployment in Nigeria 2- To examine the consequences and implications of graduate unemployment in Nigeria. 3- To provide useful suggestion and recommendations on how to curb graduate unemployment. 4- To provide the framework for further studies in this area. 5- T o provide guidelines and data for policy formulation in curbing unemployment in Africa. II. LITERATURE limited review 2Fajana ( 2000), and stand up( 1983) opined that unemployment can be describe as the state of worklessness experienced by persons who are members of the labour force who perceived themselves and are perceived by others as capable of work. Un active people can be categorized into those who have never worked after graduation from the university and those who and those who have bemused their jobs thereby seeking reentry into labour market. However, most of the previous study on unemployment of youths e circumscribedly of graduates unemployment in developing countries ( Fala e , 1971,Bhalla 1973Diejomaoh,1979 Bear and Herve 1966Bhagwati 1973 Diejomaoh and Orimolade 1971) have tended to ignore the spare case of the university graduates that are prime(prenominal) time job seeker.This study makes an fire to focus on the university graduate first job seeker. According to William (1976) the import of work to paid employment is the result of the study of capitalist deep relations. However, according to Fajana (2002) the concept of work has break awayly shifted from productive effort itself to the prevailing affable birth. For congresswoman , it is scarce in the sense of social relationship that a woman running a house and bringing up children can be said not to be working ( hay and Nutman,1981Iyoha ) UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA TRENDS After the 1967-1970 civil war in Nigeria , the incidence of graduate unemployment was suspected, ru more thand and feared( Fajana 2000).In this regards professor Diejomaoh ( 1979) in a study conducted at the human resou rce unit of the university of Lagos found that the incidence of graduate unemployment between 1965 and 1972 was not a grave problem contrary to what is being dreaded. Similarly , Folayan Ojo ( 1979) attributed whatsoever take of graduate unemployment ( presumably small ) during the period 1965-1972 to slow bureaucratic machinery for the processing of act for jobs and the influence system might have caused rough graduates to remain temporarily sluggish for the first few months after graduation. However at that time there had been shortage of medical doctors, graduate teachers and engineers musical composition agriculture graduate are under-utilized. However, the trends have changed greatly from late seventies till date. Currently the number of universities has increased and their curricular have expanded.The indigence for the establishment of private universities was in part a response to precious demand by Nigerians for higher education ( Sylverster Ugoh ,1982) 3 with pheno menal enlargement in education , the demand for this service and students enrollment had become so rife that by 1985 the turn out figure had rise to 30,000 per form even into the 1990s ( federal ministry of labour ,1985) the trend of undergraduate application and admission into universities is shown in table 1 and 2 below 2003/2004 M F 2004/2005 M F 2005/2006 M F 2006/2007 M F 2007/2008 M F 603,176 443,764 484,217 353,834 527,180 390,780 521,170 391,180 578,715 455,368mesa 1 TOTAL NUMBER OF UNIVERSITIES archive BETWEEN 2003 AND 2008. SOURCE mutual ADMISSION AND MATRICULATION BOARD, 2009 2003/2004 M F 2004/2005 M F 2005/2006 M F 2006/2007 M F 62,023 43,984 60,049 45,906 39,743 25,775 42,953 28,044 TABLE 2 TOTAL NUMBER OF ADMISSION OFFERED BETWEEN 2003 AND 2007. SOURCE JOINT ADMISSION AND MATRICULATION BOARD, 2009 The trend of undergraduate application and admission into all universities in Nigeria between 2003 and 2008 shows that between 2003/2004 sessions 603,176(male) and 443,7 64(female) candidates applied for different degree programmes and only 62,023(male) and 43984(female) candidates were offered admissions. 4TABLE 3 TOTAL ENROLMENT IN federal UNIVERSITIES BY MAJOUR DISCIPLINE. 5 TABLE 4 GRADUATE OUTPUT IN NIGERIA The identified developmental problem by the Nigerian developmental plans of 196285 entangles shortages of consummate manpower, uneven distribution of available manpower among regions and between urban and rural areas, unemployment in the informal sector s well as far-flung under-employment particularly in the informal sector, inadequate or undeveloped organizations and institutions for mobilizing human effort , pretermit of incentives for people to engage in particular activities which are important for bailiwick development , and a rapidly growing race( Folayan Ojo,1979) and ( Fajana, 2000).Since the meat of the 1970s, the policy of increased enrolment and turnout of university graduates was aimed at easing some of the development pr oblems 6 identified above. It was hoped that by providing the required quality and measuring rod of different manpower the nation can advanced at a faster pace. Hence the incidence of graduate unemployment is indeed an unfortunate problem, as these graduates find it difficult to enter labour activities to generate growth and development for the economy (Fajana, 2000). UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA CAUSES The yearbook of labour statistics (1984, 1985, 1986) reports that unemployment rate has generally risen during the world wide recession of the 1980s and 90s. The rational move taken by most caution to cope with the recession includes ban on recruitment.Since graduate are mostly first job seekers, this practice of natural wastage, which involves the refusal to fill vacancies imply that graduates directly hit. The annual reports of civil service bang ( 1981,1982) show that overseas recruitment were carried out ostensibly because of the absence of answer Nigerians to fill some technolo gical and professional jobs. This may have contributed to the problem of unemployment in Nigeria. Contrary to this, Fajana (2000) argued that the presence of expatriates in jobs may not cause graduate unemployment. Nevertheless, this factor become very important when solutions to the problem are being sought.One of the measures adopted by governments in developing countries as part of their policy package to solve manpower problems is the establishment of national youth service programmes (Godfrey, 1970). The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Nigeria came into being in 1973 in response to the particular urgent of necessity of fostering national unity, a means of recouping government investments in graduates. Unfortunately, the NYSC system of rules has encouraged employers (private and public) to shy away from employing graduates. It can be said that it has contributed to graduate unemployment in Nigeria. The labour decree (1974, section 19) protects older workers from being fit(p) off in a situation of redundancy.As labour and management makes an attempt in trying to cope with the recession, they adopt the policy of last-in-first out, join with the ban on recruitment during recession. These seemed to have combined to exert a great impact on the employment situation for graduates trying to seek first jobs. Industrialization in Nigeria has been pursued haphazardly with little or no attention paid to manpower development implications of the adopted strategies. For instance , 7 after independence , a battery of incentives were offered to industrialists to lure opposed investment into Nigeria. But, the industrialists that came were capital intensive in their operation and could not unfreeze proportional sizing of the growing labour force in nonrecreational employment (Yesufu, 1971).PSYCHO-SOCIAL EFFECT OF UNEMPLOYMENT have initial unemployment and idleness have indecorous psychological , social , occupational and financial founds on them Fashoyin (19 87) and Fajana (2000). unemployment has serious effects both on the their present living conditions and their outlook in the future and on the society in which they are supposed to be part. Unemployment is the undoing of graduates because its literally destroys them morally and rapture the ties and relationship they form. People who have no jobs feel in profound and inferior. And always having the feeling that they are ostracized from the quietus of the society , and most often they are regarded as parasites by other people.In most societies conventional work ethic suggests that unemployment is unwelcome because of the special role and meaning work has. In particular, young people in this situation feel that they must find work, no matter what. At the beginning of the search period , they look for jobs suited to their qualifications , training or dole out but later on they look for any class of work ( Hayes and Nutman , 1981) and any kind of pay ( Kasper,1987) Unemployment and un der- employment may cause people to flee the rural areas , move almost or migrate. The later effect will tend to explain some of the received wave of brain drain to the advanced countries from less developed world.The unemployed produce an unsettled labour force, and in urban areas they may fart to overcrowding and crimes. Research findings by Hayes and Nutman (1980) indicated that in a period characterized by a permanent stable high unemployment situation, there will be considerable increase in deaths due to cardiovascular diseases and cirrhosis of the colorful and murders too. According to Banks and Ullah (1988) there will also be increase in admission into psychiatric hospitals (for mental illness) and also imprisonment arising from the criminal tendencies of idle hands. In summary, Fajana (2000) opined that unemployment can lead to the following waiver of status , liberation of prestige and economic strength or power as a result of the way out of 8 ages and benefits of jo b, infliction of psychological injury as result of the breakdown in social contacts and isolation from the world of work , loss of responsibility ,identity and respect which the position at work ensures , loss of purchasing power , loss of union check off dues , loss of production and stunting of gross national product , reduction in the pay roll tax revenues of the state . III. METHODOLOGY The data used in this study is of deuce type primary and secondary data. However, for the primary data the questionnaire was used to solicit responses from the respondents. It has been structure objectively, considering the time lag and its sexual congress advantage to minimize cost. The questionnaire is divided into two main parts i. e. part I and part II. Also interviews was conducted among graduate job seekers. Part I seeks personal data of the respondent ranging from age, sex to educational qualification. These were used to analyze the characteristics of the sample with that of the race. P art II is structured basically o take into the opinion of the respondents so as to have a logical yardstick to refute or accept our research system. The population of this study was Stronix Consults Nigeria modified (SCNL). SCNL is a recruitment and employment firm with focus on recruitment, excerption and placement of job applicants into different organizations. The total number of job applicant including unsolicited applications is 1500 job applicants. This number is assumed to be the study population and 10 percent of this number was used as the sample size which is 150. Stratified sampling method was used for this study. The stratified methods group the population into some definite characteristics (strata).This is suitable for the purpose of this research as it makes it thinkable for our random pickaxe to be dvirtuoso across all disciplines (Art/Humanities, Sciences and Education). As mention earlier the data for this study was collected basically done the questionnaire and interview method. The questionnaire was administered at random among job seeker. The study population consists of unemployed graduate in Gbagada, Lagos. IV. RESULTS SPSS data abridgment was used to test the hypothesis for this study. The major hypotheses tested are as follows 9 Hypothesis one H0 Governmental policy, economic recession, employment of expatriates and trade unions wage demands does not importantly contribute to the rate of unemployment in Nigeria.H1 Governmental policy, economic recession, employment of expatriates and trade unions wage demands significantly contribute to the rate of unemployment in Nigeria. Hypothesis two H0 rural urban migration, imposition of minimum wage and influence system does not significantly contribute to the rate of unemployment in Nigeria. H1 rural urban migration, imposition of minimum wage and influence system significantly contribute to the rate of unemployment in Nigeria. TESTING THE FIRST HYPOTHESIS TABLE 4. 1 form Summary Adjus ted Std. Error Mod el 1 2 3 4 R . 255(a) . 251(b) . 244(c) . 218(d) R square toes . 065 . 063 . 060 . 048 R Square . 019 . 029 . 037 . 036 of the Estimate 1. 231 1. 224 1. 219 1. 220Regression coefficient was use to test if there is any significant relationship between unemployment ( criterion/ dependent variable) and governmental policy , economic recession , employment of expatriates and trade unions wage demand ( soothsayer / independent variables) The backward regression abridgment was used and from table 4. 1 above the first model has the stovepipe fit for the purpose of analysis because it has the highest percentage of R square of 0. 065. so, the first model was used to analysis major findings. 10 TABLE 4. 2 Coefficients(a) Standardiz Unstandardized Coefficients Mod el 1 (Constant) Unemployment rate in Nigeria is as a result of economy recession Do you think that government economic brings unemployment Nigeria?Do you think that employment expatriates contribute graduate u nemployment the country? Do you agree that trade unions wages demand the increase . 047 rate of . 125 . 042 . 376 . 708 in to the -. 053 . 092 -. 063 -. 578 . 565 of policy somewhat in -. 101 . 103 -. 108 -. 986 . 327 -. 168 . 094 -. 201 -1. 790 . 077 B 3. 451 Std. Error . 550 Beta B 6. 269 ed Coefficients T Sig. Std. Error . 000 unemployment? From table 4. 2 it is only trade union wage demand that has the highest impact on the rate of unemployment in Nigeria. That is trade union wage demand is significance than the other three variables. However, the first hypothesis was tested using 5% 11 level ( important) of significance.Since alpha is less than p value (table 4. 2, 0. 077, 0. 327, 0. 565, 0. 708) In conclusion economic recession, governmental policy, employment of expatriates and trade union wage demand increase the rate of unemployment. Normal P-P Plot of Regression Standardized Residual Dependent variant For how long have you been unemployed 1. 0 0. 8 Expected ejaculate Pro b 0. 6 0. 4 0. 2 0. 0 0. 0 0. 2 0. 4 0. 6 0. 8 1. 0 Figure 1 Observed seminal fluid Prob 12 TESTING THE SECOND HYPOTHESIS Table 4. 3 Model Summary Adjusted Std. Error Mod el 1 2 3 4 R . 214(a) . 209(b) . 162(c) . 000(d) R Square . 046 . 044 . 026 . 000 R Square . 013 . 022 . 015 . 000 of the Estimate 1. 218 1. 213 1. 217 1. 226Regression coefficient was use to test if there is any significant relationship between unemployment ( criterion/ dependent variable) rural-urban migration, want of labour market information, imposition of minimum wages ( predictors / independent variables) The backward regression analysis was used and from table 4. 3 above the first model has the best fit for the purpose of analysis because it has the highest percentage of R square of 0. 046 Therefore the first model was used to analysis major findings. Table 4. 4 Coefficients(a) Standardiz Unstandardized Coefficients Mod el 1 (Constant) B 2. 439 Std. Error . 474 Beta B 5. 150 ed Coefficients t Sig. Std. Er ror . 000 13Do you agree that rural-urban migration about bring -. 165 graduate . 093 -. 192 -1. 782 . 078 unemployment? Do you agree that lack market is a of labour information contributory . 052 . 110 . 052 . 469 . 640 factor to graduate unemployment Nigeria? Do you agree that imposition minimum of wages . 103 . 096 . 119 1. 069 . 288 in contribute to the rate of unemployment? From table 4. 2 it is only rural urban migration that has the highest impact on the rate of unemployment in Nigeria. That is rural-urban migration is significance than the other two variables. However, the second hypothesis was also tested using 5% level (alpha) of significance.Since alpha is less than p value (table 4. 4. 0. 078, 0. 640, 0. 288,) In conclusion rural-urban migration, lack of information and imposition of minimum wage bring about unemployment. V. CONCLUSIONS be after for human resources use in Nigeria has been based on guesswork. Rational steps taken by most management to cope with the reces sion include ban on recruitment. The practice of natural wastage, which involves the refusal to fill vacancies imply that job seekers are directly hit. Though the rate of appointment of expatriates has been slowed since 1982, presently a reasonable percentage of the labour force in Nigeria is still reign by foreigners.Most private and even public institutions tend to see the NYSC as a means of securing cheap labour. They utilize the services bay window members each year but tend not to absolve any substantial number at the end of the service year. The 14 borrowing of the policy of last in first out by labour and management, coupled with ban on recruitment seemed to exert a great impact on the employment situation of university graduates. Existence of artificial barriers to geographical mobility of labour, cultural employment practices , localization and truncating of potentials along tribal lines , marginalization of the short and the poor state of social infrastructure ( Ukpo ng,1994).Femi Fajana ( 1994) and Anyanwu ( 1994) argued that failure of the Nigerian government to appraise the employment implications of international trade policies, monetary and fiscal policies vastly contribute to unemployment rate in the country. Notwithstanding the above mentioned adverse effect and consequences of unemployment in the Nigerian economy , a number of general approaches are being recommended for the purpose of curbing the unemployment menace ( Fajana, 2000) these are approaches are The tough approach to hr planning should reverse ,i. e coordinated planning for human resources should be encourage at all level of the economy. incorporate effort towards labour intensive project Resuscitate labour exchanges programmes based on comparative cost advantage Orientation of university graduates to change their perceptions about menial jobs Elimination of rigid job and wage preference Graduate should be encourage to study for a higher degree in a more relevant disciplin e to reduce skills-mismatch Validation of selection instrument and deemphasize reliance on the influence system In a situation of massive unemployment, the unions role is to protect the amuse of members the labour is segmented in the process. But unions must broaden their aims in such circumstances to include social justice for all employed and unemployed people. The trade unions can also help in creating more jobs by instating as far as possible on labour intensive project. 15 Population control, reduction in the rate of expansion of higher education , review of funding for higher education , variegation of the economy, exploring the possibility of labour exports. References Beer , W And Herves M. E. A ( 1966). Employment And Indusstrialization In evolution Countries, Quarterly journal of Economics, Vol. 30 No. 1 Bhalla A. S ( 1973) A Disaggregative Approach To Employment In Less Developed Countries The Journal Of nurture Studies Berg, E. J. (1969) wages policy and employmen t in less developed countries , in R. Robinson, Ibid. Diejomoah V. P And Orimolade W. A. T (1971). 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