An entrepreneur Fayo Williams has expressed concerns about the rising rate of unemployment in the country, calling for the creation of a national job portal as part of ways to tackle the issue.
The certified vocational education trainer, who spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, described the country’s unemployment level, which is expected to hit 41 percent this year, as “frightening”.
“The last speaker spoke about the unemployment rate. It is frightening,” she said on the breakfast show on Thursday. “In a country like Nigeria, by now, we need to put things in place like having a national job portal.”
She said the lack of a national job portal in the country makes it hard for recruiters to hunt for talent which would help in bridging the employment gap.
“There are vacancies in various private organisations at different times and we don’t have a centralised portal where we can type in our spec, and qualifications and have a couple of candidates come up,” she explained. “So, we are not really helping ourselves by not having that.”
Asides from this, she called for more attention to digital skills which would help in empowering youths.
“Another thing we are not leveraging on is the tech and innovation,” she added. “If you have been able to attract a Mark Zuckerberg to Nigeria, it means we have that growing army of youths who are just waiting to be empowered using the structure of possibly the innovation hubs, teaching these youths digital skills and then being able to export Nigerian talents to the world in the right way, not just ‘japa’.”
She also wants the government to provide the right environment for businesses to thrive. Citing a recent case of multiple taxations, the entrepreneur said though several moves have been made to address the challenge and other issues affecting businesses, the situation should be better.
“The enabling environment is not really what it should be,” Ms Fayo added.
