About 40 million Nigerians translating to
23.9 per cent are unemployed, Chairman,
Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) Dr
Christopher Kolade has said.
He spoke yesterday in Ilorin, the Kwara State
capital at a sensitisation forum for firms in the
state.
Quoting the National Bureau of Statistics
(NBS), he added that one of the challenges of
graduate unemployment is the “inability of the
system to absorb the about 300,000 graduates
churned out of our tertiary institutions.”
Kolade, who was represented at the forum by
the Assistant Director and Head of Services,
SURE-P, Anthony Kalu, said:“Firms readily
blame lack of experience, high cost of
maintaining a large work force and the need to
maintain profit above the red line as the
reason for not employing the graduates. GIS
provides a way out of this dilemma by
developing a skill base that firms can benefit
from among our graduates at very minimal
cost.
He added that the Graduate Internship Scheme
(GIS) of the programme aims to employ at
about 50,000 unemployed graduates in 36
states and FCT in one year.
He said the scheme is targeted at improving
the skills unemployed graduates through work
placement in registered firms.
The chairman SURE-P, who lamented that only
35 per cent of 2,000 registered firms had met
minimum requirement for participation, said
over 96,000 unemployed graduates have
registered on the GIS portal.
The SURE-P chief, therefore, described the
forum as a call to action for the participating
firms, urging them to partner with the Federal
Government and contribute their quota to
addressing graduate unemployment.
“In Kwara State, 46 organisations have
registered and five have been approved to take
interns. Also, out of the 3,290 graduates that
have registered in the state, 21 have been
matched to firms and only three have been
hired.
“Clearly, there is an urgent need for more
firms to participate in this programme and take
graduates out of the labour market,” he said.
Kolade said graduates will be placed in profit,
non-profit organisations and selected
government agencies on a one year internship,
adding that the interns are expected to acquire
professional skills, training and work
experience to improve their job placement
opportunities.
He said the Federal Government will pay a
monthly stipend of N25,000 to the interns
while participating institutions will be expected
to provide adequate opportunities for work
and mentoring, including personal accident
insurance.
“Government is concerned about high
unemployment rate and is doing everything
possible to reverse it. It recognises the fact
that stakeholders- Federal Government, state
governments, local governments, organised
private sector, development organisations, and
religious organisations must also resolve to
reverse this trend for it to change,” he said.
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