CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Unemployment is one of the developmental problems that faces developed and mostly developing economies of which Nigeria constitutes ²/3(two-thirds) of the population of developing countries. Most developing economies are faced with numerous labour market crises and that of Nigeria is not an exception. The Nigerian labour market problem may be characterized as one of the chronic labour market crisis with high rate of unemployment and underemployment statistics, discrimination and wage inequalities.
The structure of most developing economies Nigeria inclusive is fundamentally characterized and entrenched in dualism. At independence in 1960, Nigeria inherited an economy that exhibited both extreme characteristics of reliability on developed economy and economic backwardness and neglect of majority of the people. The dualism had arisen from the policy of the white supremacy that underlined the colonial era. The issue of dualism originated from the imposition of the capitalist mode of production unto a non-capitalist system (Chinpanluwa and Makwarara 2002). In their words, this situation becomes self-perpetuating and concretized over time into what is currently depicted in the economy. This situation evolved from the institutionalization of the majority of the labour force before independence. The majority of the people were disentitled of their land, had restricted access to human capital development (through lack of education and training) and this brought about the built-in constraints that shaped the future development as well as labour absorptive capacity. Unemployment has been categorized as one of the major and serious impediment to social and economic progress. Apart from representing a colossal waste of a country’s manpower resources, it generates welfare loss in terms of lower output thereby leading to lower income and well-being (Akinbayo 1987 and Rabeen 1993)
Unemployment is a very serious issue in Africa and particularly in Nigeria. Nigeria has a population of over 40 Million unemployed persons. Indeed, the Nigerian landscape is crawling with a rapidly mutating population of jobless able-bodied men and women who are frustrated and whose disempowerment accounts largely for the reign of cynicisms in the country and a high mortality rate. We should realize that from the onset, the unemployment problem is a political economy issue which economic reforms have failed to address and hence cannot be addressed through market forces. The Nigerian economy because of its relative diversification and level of development in the African regions have potentials for exploiting the benefits og globalization. However, the dualism problem is militating against the realization of its potentials. The economy needs rapid growth to absorb the growth in the labour force.