Reducing Youth Unemployment, Underemployment and Poverty Level: Corporate Apprenticeship Programme [CAP] Route

Olugbenga Babajide Soyemi, Jumoke Soyemi, Volume 4 Issue 2, December 2023 Pages 166, Published: 2023-12-23

Abstract

The unemployment rate in Nigeria is put at 23.1% by the National Bureau of Statistics with the nation having 82.9 million (40.1%) of her citizenries living below the poverty line of N 137, 430 per year. The young people (aged 15-35years) are worst hit with an unemployment/underemployment rate of 55.4%. To create a basis for this work, interviews were conducted, and a questionnaire administered among 612 people, aged 15-34 years across three states in southwest Nigeria. Youth without skill and with informal skill accounted for 68.12% of the respondents, while unemployment and underemployment accounted for 62.6%. To mitigate youth unemployment and lack of skills, the paper proposes a Corporate Apprenticeship Program model. The proposed model has two entry points, one for a person with at least secondary education and the other for persons without secondary education. The apprenticeship’s scheme will combine paid work with controlled on-the-job training and classroom-based associated technical instruction (provided by an institution) at the firm’s premises. This will lead to either the trainee working for the firm after completing the program or setting up their businesses. Keywords: Apprenticeship, Unemployment, Underemployment, Skill Acquisition