Youth Unemployment

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT - Nigeria's Shame Unless Africa trades with Africa and unless Africa invests in Africa, we're going to continue to be poor.

Africa's most populous nation and largest economy have a youth unemployment problem. In Nigeria, nearly a quarter of the population is out of work and 20 percent is underemployed. For young people aged 15 to 35, the figures are grim: 55.4 percent of them are without work. Creating jobs has been one of the key issues discussed throughout the 2019 election campaign. Being young in Nigeria is "very challenging", explains Andrew Nevin, advisory partner, and chief economist at PwC Nigeria. "Graduates from university have a great deal of difficulty in getting Andrew Nevin, advisory partner & chief economist, PwC Nigeria

established. People that didn't go to university who should be getting vocational training are not getting it. They're not getting into formal employment. Given the scale of Nigeria, it's a challenge not just for Nigeria, but for Africa and the whole world." There are systemic problems behind unemployment, Nevin points out. "Oil over the last 30 years in this country has meant people have taken their eye off other industries, there's a lack of diversification that we have. The good news is that everyone recognizes it, and they recognize it's a crisis ... People are discussing youth unemployment, the need for youth to be employed to have something gainful to do." "Structural problems remain here, the government hasn't tackled issues around the exchange rate policy or the oil subsidy ... so all of these issues are holding back investment and growth in Nigeria." In order for Nigeria to grow faster, "The country needs more investment," according to Nevin. "The most important thing is we need the private sector to grow in the next decade 10-15 times larger to really make a dent in unemployment and poverty in Nigeria. And that means "Africans are going to continue to be poor unless Africans trade with Africans and increase the value-added.

every sector ... the biggest sector that needs to grow in Nigeria is real estate. Everyone needs a place to live and we have a deficit of 17 million homes, and the great thing about real estate is that it employs a lot of people, particularly carpenters, plumbers, laborers - so it really absorbs that young population." "Africans are going to continue to be poor unless Africans trade with Africans and increase the valueadded. We're very strong proponents of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) ... it's obvious that if we're just exporting raw materials to Europe or Asia, that we're going to continue to be in poverty in Africa. So I think people have recognized that, and I think the speed at which the AfCFTA agreement has come together is really astonishing. It illustrates there's a sense of a panAfricanism that's coming, and the leaders of that recognize that unless Africa trades with Africa and unless Africa invests in Africa, we're going to.