Effects of Youth Unemployment and its consequence: A Survey of Youth in Yobe State, Nigeria

Abstract

s: This study assessed the effect of youth unemployment and its consequence: a survey of Youth in Yobe State, Nigeria. The socioeconomic characteristics of respondents were described, the causes as well as the consequence of youth unemployment in the study area were all determined. In order to examine the effect of youth unemployment; all the three senatorial zones of the State were selected; taking one Local Government Area from each zone. Data were collected using well structured questionnaire and analysed through the use of descriptive statistics .From the findings of the research, out of the 160 respondents 51% were male while 49 % were female with ages ranging from 15 to 65 with an average of 30 years. While 97% of the respondents were married, whereas, 68% had formal education, mostly secondary and adult education. Majority of the respondents representing 80% were non members of cooperative societies and 56% had no access to credit facilities. The result further showed that, rapid growth of population, growth of labour force arising from rural-urban migration interms of push/pull factors, lack of employable skills, cultural barriers, lack of awareness, lack of vibrant manufacturing sector (industries, factories) and massive corruption were ranked 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th respectively as major causes of youth unemployment in the study area. The finding further ranked the consequence of youth unemployment to be 1 st , 2 nd , 3rd and 4 th as; youth as political thugs, youth as a tool for ethno-religious clashes, youth as local militants and youth as an instrument for antisocial vices in the study area. The paper therefore, recommends that, Nigerian Government should play its constitutional role by creating enabling socioeconomic and political environment including the provision of infrastructure to make industrial climate investment friendly. Also a package of planned empowerment projects / programme should be put in place, which would massively equip the youth with useful trade and entrepreneurial skills in Automobile, Agricultural production and processing, integrated science clinic, computer and information technology among others.