Tackling Youth Unemployment through Entrepreneurship

Abstract

DR. SUNDAY I. OWUALAH IS A SENIOR lecturer in the Department of Finance, University of Lagos, Nigeria. This paper presents evidence that promoting entrepreneurship consciously among youths can be an effective way of tackling unemployment within this group. This conclusion is drawn from the analysis of survey data collected from a stratified sample of loan beneficiaries of the Smallscale Industries and Graduate Employment Programme in Nigeria. This programme is one of four programmes of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) set up in Nigeria in 1987 to encourage and assist unemployed youths to establish and operate their own smallscale firms. The analysis shows that an average of four newjobs were created by each of the respondent firms in the first four years of the programme. It further reveals that the firms achieved an appreciable growth in their assets, while previous training, experience and personal inclinations of their owners largely influenced the choice of types of small-scale firms that were established.

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