CHECKMATING YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA FISH FARMING OPTION
ABSTRACT
Checkmating unemployment among Nigeria youth: fish farming option is a project meant to look into the
unemployment situation in the country, identify the course and effect and possible effort being made by the
government to remedy the situation. The fish farming option can be seen as an option to checkmate unemployment.
So, this project focuses on exploring the fish farming business as the way youth can be self-employed. This project is
divided into five chapters with chapter one starting with the background of the study, objective of the study limitation of
the study statement of research problem, scope of the study and justification of the study. Several literature are
review to see what other authority says about the topic. So, several books, journals and other sources of information
were used to assess the level and nature of unemployment situation globally and also in Nigeria. The option fish
farming was expressively discussed for easy understanding of those who intend to go for the business. The research
methodology aspect is the focuses of chapter three while the four deals with data analysis and interpretation. The
questionnaires were design and distributed to the respondent, personal interview and observation were also used to
get the information. The data was interpreted using simple percentage, regression analysis and spearman rank order
correlation method were used to test the two hypothesis of the fish farming reduce youth unemployment and fish farming is a lucrative business. Finally, the whole finding were summarize, recommendations were made and the
chapter was concluded on the note that fish farming could be a better option to checkmate youth unemployment in Nigeria and also lucrative.
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Unemployment is defined according to Oxford Advance Dictionary as the fact of number of people without a job.
Harold Goldstein (2008) defined unemployment as enforced idleness of wage earners who are able and willing to
work but cannot find jobs. In societies in which most people can earn a living only by working for others, being unable
to find a job is a serious problem. Because of its human costs in deprivation and a feeling of rejection and personal
failure, the extent of unemployment is widely used as a measure of workers’ welfare. The proportion of workers
unemployed also shows how well a nation’s human resources are used and serves as an index of economic activity.
Unemployment is a global phenomenon in this 21st century. For example the rate of unemployment in Belgium stood
at 8.7% (statistics institute of Belgium, 2010).United Arab Emirate rise to 12.7% (Emirate business April, 2008).
United State of America is 9.8% (office of national statistic US November, 2010).
The rates of unemployment in Africa are listed below: –
Ø South Africa 25.3% (statistic South Africa, 2010)
Ø Nigeria 19.7% (National Bureau for statistic federal Republic of Nigeria 2009, September).
Economists have described the causes of unemployment as frictional, seasonal, structural, and cyclical.
Frictional unemployment arises because workers seeking jobs do not find them immediately; while looking for work
they are counted as unemployed. Friction in this case refers to the incongruity between the demand for and supply of
labor.
Seasonal unemployment occurs when industries have a slow season, such as construction and other outdoor work in
winter. It also occurs at the end of the school year in June, when large numbers of students and graduates look for
work. At its seasonal high point (January and February), Structural unemployment arises from an imbalance between
the kinds of workers wanted by employers and the kinds of workers looking for jobs. The imbalances may be caused
by inadequacy in skills, location, or personal characteristics. Technological developments, for example, necessitate
new skills in many industries, leaving those workers who have outdated skills without a job.
Cyclical unemployment results from a general lack of demand for labor. When the business cycle turns downward,
demand for goods and services drops; consequently, workers are laid off. In the 19th century, the U.S. experienced
depressions roughly every 20 years.
However, several effort have been made to tackle unemployment globally through fund from international economic
organization (like World Bank, International monetary fund, European Economic Community), Government, corporate
organization, non Governmental parastatal and individual. Attentions are driven toward creating job rather than
seeking for job. Ogunleye G.A. (2004) says in the face of severe unemployment experienced by a country as Nigeria, small and
medium scale is usually the way out. The experience of some developed countries like United States of America and
China that SME has contributed to the growth and development of these economies, especially in terms of
employment, contribution to GDP, export, etc. it is as a result of these that U.S.A currently has a small business
sector that has about 22 million small sector generating more than a half of the country’s GDP, employing about 53%
of the total private workforce, and is responsible for creation of all new jobs. Also in china, the number of township
enterprises (as SME are called ) increase from 1.52 million in 1978 to 19 million in 1991. During this period, their
employees increased from 28 million to 96 million. The same is true of rural Middle East and Asian.
In a developing country like Nigeria, SMEs have been recognized as the foundation for achieving rapid economic
growth and development by way of their output as well as employment potentials. However, despite the numerous
advantages of SMEs, the contribution of this sector to the overall economic development of the nation has over the
years remained low. Because of this problems and in recognition of SMEs advantage federal government of Nigeria
has over the years continued to play pioneering and active roles since the 1970s in stimulating SMEs. Notable among
the past present and measures for combating unemployment include:
- provision of strong institutional support which can be seen in the following:
· The establishment of the small scale industries credit schemes (SSIC) in 1971.the scheme was operated as
a matching grant between state and federal government to make credit available for small and medium enterprise.
· The establishment of industrial development centers (IDC) 1970-1975.under the plan, #800,000 was
allocated for setting up IDCs in various parts of the country. The aim of government was to provide extension services
to the SME as they relate to product development, entrepreneurial training, and technical appraisal of loan application
as well as managerial assistance.
· Establishment of National Directorate of Employment (NDE) 1986. Through the Directorate, a number of
programmes such as small scale industries, youth Employment and vocational skills Development, etc, were
embarked upon to boost employment.
· Working for Yourself Programme (WFYP) with the assistance of British council and the international labour
organization (ILO), the federal ministry of industries established this programme to provide technical skills to business
entrepreneurs. - Establishment of industrial banks and ensuring easy access to credit facilities at reasonable rates.
Government realize fund to the established bank through central bank of Nigeria. The established banks are:
o The Nigerian industrial development bank (1964).the bank can grant loan from # 50000- #15 million but not more
than the 75% of the fixed asset of the business being finance.
o The Nigeria bank for commerce and industry (1973) to furtherance of its objective to ensure availability of finance
to indigenous entrepreneurs.
o National economic reconstruction fund (NERFUND) Set up in 1989 to provide medium to long term loan for SME.
The government, Non-Governmental organization and individual citizen of Nigeria effort have gone a long way in
generating employment across the sectors of the economy.
Despite the effort made so far to combat unemployment, 29,550,000 youth are still unemployment (national bureau
for statistics federal republic of Nigeria 2009) which means by implication the number will increase by some Nigeria
Youth Corp who will step into the labour market this year. To remedy this government can work on the sector that has
the potential of generating employment i.e. agricultural sector particularly fish farming.
In 2004 the total world production of fish farming was 140,500,000 tones and the growth rate has been sustained and
rapid, in 2007, its market reached $ 86 billion (Source: World Fisheries and Aquaculture) which tells us that fish
farming has the potentiality of creating employment globally.
Fish farming is an important economic activity in China. Between 1980 and 1997, the Chinese harvests grew at
annual rate of 16.7 percent, jumping from 1,900,000 tones to 23,000,000 tones (Source: Chinese Bureau of fisheries
report, 2005) which account for 70% of world production of fish.
Nigeria as a nation has a population of 150 million people (Source: population Census 2006) with the unending
demand for fish by her populate can adopt the measure that China used in combating unemployment. Therefore, fish
farming is one of lucrative business one can learn and earn a very good profit. - WHAT THEN IS FISH FARMING?
- According to Grace .O. Evbuomwan (2004) defined fish farming as the art of growing and breeding fish in enclosures
such as ponds, multipurpose water reservoirs, irrigation and drainage channels, fish pens constructed at the edges
of rivers or lakes, water filled burrow pits as well as fish cages floated on rivers or lakes.
Fish farming has the following braches which one can specialize and expand as time goes by: – - Construction of fish ponds
- Production and selling of fingerlings
- Buying and Nurturing of fingerlings to juveniles and post juveniles stage then crop.
- Buying and selling of feeds
- Fish farming consultant.
Fish farming Nigeria contribute to the Nigeria GDP of #216.417 billion (source Chairman Fishery society of Nigeria)
and small and medium scale fish farming contribute #14 billion to the economy. This is indeed an eye opener to a
lucrative business one can start and make cool money. - 1.2. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
- Unemployment is a social evil that must be kept at an acceptable level because it bring about increase in crime rate
and other social vices among the youth, ranging from prostitution , political violent, internet scam, kidnapping,
militancy in Niger delta, drug trafficking armed robbery and girl trafficking to Italy. It also brings about loss of dignity,
human suffering, poverty, family disintegration etc.
The need to create employment has made government to be taking several measures to tackle the problem through
conversing for entrepreneurial behaviour among the youth accompany with initiating of several developmental and
empowerment programs through national directorate for employment, releasing of fund from centre bank of Nigeria through bank of industry to micro finance bank.
CHECKMATING YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA FISH FARMING OPTION