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By Victor Ahiuma-Young
ECONOMY
The Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, NECA, yesterday expressed concern at the growing unemployment rate, warning that Nigeria was in a very serious crisis.
In a statement in Lagos, NECA’s Director-General, Dr. Timothy Olawale, said that the recently released data by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, indicating a steadily rising unemployment rate, is both worrisome and expected.
According to him, “while the figure showed that the unemployment crisis is worsening at an alarming rate, it is also instructive to note that the socio-economic factors that increased the figure to 27 per cent in the last NBS release remains.”
Expressing concern at the on-going challenges facing businesses, he noted that many businesses have not recovered from the negative effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic, insecurity has caused many others in the Northern region to close shop while access to critical foreign exchange to import inputs is low and the regulatory environment remains largely unfriendly.”
On the way forward, he stated: “To stem the tide of this downward slope, we urge Government to refocus its efforts at supporting organized businesses to increase its production capacity, which will invariably enable them to create more jobs.
“Real and verifiable support should be given to MSMEs to enable growth from bottom up and a critical impact-audit of current interventions made to determine their effectiveness and relevance in the context of current realities.”
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