Unemployment is a global problem and is not limited to Nigeria alone. Statistics show that Nigeria has an unemployment rate of 23.9%, well over 4 times the rate in 2006. At the end of 2012, Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral commission (INEC) advertised employment opportunities for 1500 entry (graduate) level staff and got 800,000 applications!
In the same year, the Dangote Group advertised recruitment opportunities for 100 graduate Executive Truck Drivers, and to the chagrin of many, Six Ph.D. holders, 65 MBA holders, 649 M.Sc. holders and over 8,460 degree holders were among the 300,000 people who applied. All these are the situations of unemployment in Nigeria.
In Nigeria, government have provided laudable programmes to curb the growing concern of joblessness among the teeming population in the country in recent times. President Goodluck Jonathan launched youth enterprise with new innovation in Nigeria (YouWin), a business plan competition to reduce the high density of unemployment of the nation’s universities’ graduates. The program has sponsored 2400 businesses. Details available at www.youwin.org.ng.
Unemployment is defined as an economic state of people living in absolute joblessness which ranges fall between the ages of 20-40 while underemployed is refers to as people who are gainfully employed but not financially rewarding to authenticate their qualifications.
Many Nigerians today are underemployed despite their intimidating credentials being possessed in high flying institutions in the world together with economic recession and inconsistent policies in the country.
The question is, how can I be gainfully employed in this jobless world? If we are unemployed, 75% of the reasons are ours while 25% is governments’ and other reasons. 75% of the reasons are personal. Here are the reasons researches have shown for joblessness and why we are not employed.
(1) Lack of personal discovery of individual potentials (2) Ignorance of available job opportunities
(3) Low creativity and innovation (4)Wrong choice of academic or career pursuits
(5) Personal sentiments (6) Laziness (7) Over dependence on corporate jobs
(8)Get rich quick syndrome (9) Unwillingness to serve others or start small
To be gainfully employed means one is involved in a work that is self-fulfilling, involve the use of one’s capabilities, highly gratifying, and financially rewarding.
As we position ourselves to be gainfully employed in this jobless world, we need to take note of the following:
KNOW YOURSELF
To be gainfully employed, you need to know your natural tendencies, your talents, things that come easily to you but not to others. What works for you and what does not from experience, the dreams of your heart, your strengths and your weaknesses. It is by knowing yourself that you can have an idea of what you are capable of doing. Closely linked to knowing yourself is knowing what you do not want to become or what you do not want to do. What do you do so well that people tend to name you after such a thing? Which one of your skills do you see intensity of passion flowing towards the most?
DEVELOP YOUR POTENTIAL TO BE MARKETABLE
Read books, participate in trainings, seek mentors, you may even enrol in a school if necessary. Someone once said, talent makes you available, skill makes you desirable and business skill makes you profitable. By whatever means, develop that potential. Hone that ability. Make it a skill. Make it very valuable. Make it desirable. It is not going to be easy, but I assure you, it will be well worth the effort and investment.
IDENTIFY THE PROBLEMS THE USE OF YOUR TALENT WILL SOLVE
What problem do you naturally desire to solve with the use of your talent? The answer will tell where your developed talent (now a skill) is mostly needed. You can seek to be employed by an individual, an organisation or to be self-employed. It all depends on which one fits most into your desire and your future plans.
Locate individuals, organisations or communities that have the problems your skill can solve. Consider the uniqueness of their problems and work on proffering solutions to them. Market your solution to them. Marketing your solution can be in form of submitting a proposal on how you can help solve such problems. You may need to give solutions out for free or very cheaply initially as a way of making people to get to know about your solutions. An organisation will be employing you for the value you will be adding to it.
BE SELF EMPLOYED
One of the surest ways to be gainfully employed in a jobless world is to be self-employed. Self-employment refers to the situation in which an individual works for himself or herself instead of working for an employer that pays a salary or a wage. A self-employed individual earns their income through conducting profitable operations from a trade or business that they operate directly.
It means that you plan to run an entity that sells your solution. It gives you control of the time, income and expenditure. It also means that you are planning to take the financial risk important for an entrepreneur. Your enterprise must deliver products or services that have links with your passion.
You need to have a platform through which your solution will be accessed. It can be a business entity, an organisation or an institution depending on the concept of your solution.
You must know the people who need the solution that you provide. You must come up with the product, package and promote it. Pricing is an essential part of business and i’m sure your business is not an exception. Passion, platform, people, product, packaging, promotion, pricing and profit are essential components of your plan to be self-employed.
Any self-employed business idea that you can start today with little or no money can be generated by 1. Your talent and gift 2, your achievements and experience 3. Your passion 4. The opportunities you can take advantage of 5. Finding people’s needs and providing them 6. Looking for problems to solve 7. Getting a revelation from God 8. Copying an idea.
To really be gainfully employed, your mind-set must change to that of an entrepreneur, the solution provider, who generates ideas and prepare himself for opportunities.
The world is waiting to give you money; the question is what are you selling? Money is the reward we get for solving a problem with a product or a service. Start a business today along the line of your interest and be gainfully employed.
The road will definitely be rough and tough but a good number of us have travelled this road successfully, you can be one of us. You have what it takes to succeed: some people have done it, and so you can.
I believe in you!
– Dayo Adetiloye
Lead consultant, 100/5 Academy
www.dayoadetiloye.com
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