IS TECHNOLOGY RESPONSIBLE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT?

February 17, 2020

By Promise Akwaowo

Introduce the debate on technology and unemployment to set context and clarify that technology is not solely responsible for Nigeria’s unemployment issues, keeping readers engaged from the start. 

Technology, which has many definitions due to its vast usage and application, has been defined by online dictionary.com as: “the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science.” 

Meanwhile, Unemployment has been defined by Investopedia.com as that which “occurs when a person who is actively searching for employment is unable to find work. Unemployment is often used as a measure of the health of the economy. The most frequent measure of unemployment is the unemployment rate, which is the number of unemployed people divided by the number of people in the labor force”. 

The challenges confronting the Nigerian economy in the 21st Century are diverse and enormous. They have kept the economy in the most unacceptable state, despite the country’s abundant endowment of both human and natural resources, whose potential remains largely untapped and even mismanaged. One of the impediments to the socio-economic development of the Nigerian nation is the ever-increasing unemployment rate, among other challenges. 

According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, the last report shows that the unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 23.10 percent in the third quarter of 2018 from 22.70 percent in the second quarter of 2018. Unemployment Rate in Nigeria averaged 12.31 percent from 2006 until 2018, reaching an all-time high of 23.10 percent in the third quarter of 2018 and a record low of 5.10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. 

Historically, Nigeria embarked on a series of periodic national development plans between 1960 and 1990, and telecommunications development was featured in each of these plans, which were usually of five-year duration. During this period, the priority of the government was to meet the needs of the fledging commercial and industrial sector of the economy through the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the telephone equipment and other infrastructure damaged during the civil war, installation of more telephone lines, expansion of trunk dialing facilities and general expansion of the telecommunication network, One of the cardinal objectives of the various national reform policies such as Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP), National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (NEEDS), etc was to develop as rapidly as possible, opportunities in education, health, and other sectors for creation of more jobs. But unfortunately, the incidence of unemployment and poverty across all strata and geographical entities in the country has grown deeper and become widespread. 

Still on the build-up of unemployment in Nigerian history, theLibrary of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook (1991) reported that measures taken under the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in Nigeria haveresulted in instability in the unemployment rate. The national unemployment rate, estimated by the Office of Statistics as 4.3 percent of the labour force in 1985, increased to 5.3 percent in 1986 and 7.0 percent in 1987 before falling to 5.1 percent in 1988. Most of the unemployed were city dwellers, as indicated by urban jobless rates of 8.7 per cent in 1985, 9.1 per cent in 1986, 9.8 per-cent in 1987, and 7.3 per-cent in 1988. Underemployed farm labour, often referred to as disguised unemployed, continued to be supported by the family or village, and therefore, rural unemployment figures were less accurate than those for urban unemployment.

Among the openly unemployed rural population, almost two-thirds were secondary-school graduates. The most significant proportion of the unemployed (consistently 35 to 50 per-cent) were secondary-school graduates. There was also a 40 per-cent unemployment rate among urban youth aged twenty to twenty-four, and a 31-per-cent rate among those aged fifteen to nineteen. Two-thirds of the urban unemployed were fifteen to twenty-four years old.

On the other hand, according to Akpang-Upkong, technology has enabled people to participate in a world in which school, work, and other activities are increasingly enhanced by access to various technologies. Since the 1980s, these have enabled people to explore, analyze, share, and present information more scientifically. Although ICT development in Nigeria has been confronted with several opportunities and challenges, it has never been responsible for unemployment; it has also become the sector that best synchronizes different technologies and has a high growth potential in the global economy. Thus, since its inception in Nigeria a little over a century ago, ICT has progressed through various stages of development, from the primitive communications equipment of the colonial days to the enormous variety of technologies available today. 

For example, in the banking sector, the technological revolution has exerted significant influence on the production structure and factor mix, and these effects have implications for unemployment. Due to global connections, technological progress around the world has impacted the way businesses in Nigeria manage their production processes. Banks in Nigeria have had to increase their investments in ICT-based capital, such as ATMs and e-banking platforms, to meet customer demands, reduce costs, and increase profits. Some studies note that increased ICT use in banking services may unintentionally lead to job losses in the sector.

To conclude, multiple studies consistently demonstrate that unemployment remains a persistent challenge. Technology emerged to offer simpler ways of working, yet Nigeria has failed to harness its full potential. Therefore, we cannot consider technology a cause of unemployment in Nigeria.

Source: Promise Akwaowo