Labour calls for policies to check unemployment

Labour calls for policies to check unemployment

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have urged the Nigerian government to adopt policies that would tackle unemployment.

The President of the NLC,  Mr Abdulwahed  Omar, made the call in Abuja on Sunday, at the 2011 May Day celebrations with theme, “Growing the National Economy for Job Creation and People’s Welfare''.

He said that unemployment remained one of the greatest challenges facing the nation.

In his words; “the number of unemployed university graduates does not only constitute an unfortunate wastage of human capital, but also constitutes a major threat to a stable social order.”

 He noted that the union had used every opportunity to engage the government for it to tackle the problem of unemployment.

Strategies

Omar said that the Nigerian government had set up a committee on job summit and that several State Governments had also instituted programmes on job creation.

He commended the government’s efforts but noted that the reality was that the unemployment challenges remained very daunting.

Omar, however, said that while interventionist and targeted programmes could help to ameliorate the problem in the short run, the long run solution to the unemployment problem lay in nurturing a national economy, buoyant, balance and stable.

Basic expectations

The President General, of the TUC, Mr Peter Esele, said that Nigerian workers and their dependents wanted to feel the impact of the growth statistics reeled out periodically by relevant government agencies.

Esele said that workers wanted to see growth translated into more qualitative and quantitative food on the table, better education, better social and physical infrastructure.

“They want to work in decent environment and they want their efforts toward nation building to be adequately recognised and rewarded,” he said

He called for concerted action from government to address the various identified gaps with a view to making Nigerian worker the key element in all employment policies.

NAN/Williams