‘No idea of how many unemployed youths in Nigeria,’ Minister says

The Minister of  State for Labour and Employment, James Ocholi (SAN), has revealed that the Government has no idea of how many unemployed youths there are in Nigeria.

He said this while speaking to newsmen on the proposed N5,000 stipend project.

Ocholi said “Before we got to where we are there is no data anywhere. There is no data of the unemployed.

“In fact, there is no data of the employed. It’s a bad situation but as we talk with you, we have experts working on the software and the various things which we have discussed with them on how to capture the data of the employed and the unemployed. And for those who are employed there are many who are in wrong places.”

He also added that “There is a firm that we sort for and is working with the National Directorate of  Employment, they have done a pilot scheme in Bwari and they have an office in Lobito Crescent right now and they are preparing for a mega scale on job profiling.”

The Ministry of Labour recently entered into a partnership with indigenous technology company, Zinox Computers,to build a database of unemployed residents in the country.