Entrepreneurship Training and Early Retirement: A Twin Muzzle Solution to Un-Employment in Africa

Abstract

To help ease the problem of un-employment in Africa, a study on the impact of entrepreneurial training and early retirement was carried out in a number of African countries. The study targeted what roles early retirement intervention and entrepreneurial training can do to help boost the percentage of employed population. The study focused on the analysis of un-employment levels, retirement age, demographic characteristics, investment levels among retirees of different ages, wage bills in the public service organizations, employee performance versus experience and a comparative study of those indices among the first world economies. Data was basically got from secondary sources except the data from Kenya, and analyzed by use percentages, time series, trends, ratios, correlation analysis and ANOVA. It was presented using population pyramids, bar charts, graphs, linear regression graphs and pie charts. The study revealed that these countries have a huge proportion of population being youthful, the government or public service is a major employer, there is a high rate of un-employment, there is poor investment patterns among those retiring at the normal retirement age, the public services are faced with huge wage bills, there is low correlation between experience and performance and there is a big difference between the demographic patterns of these countries and those of the western countries. The study suggests that:  Early retirement programs should be rolled out to increase chances of more investment hence employment.  Governments' intervention to fund the retirement programs because there are all the signs that the pension bodies may not be prepared with that.  The retirees need to be taken through a thorough entrepreneurial training to ensure that their early retirement benefits are not used for basic consumption instead of investment.  Proper and timely evaluation of the programs is done and corrective measures put in place early enough.  Measure to increase entrepreneurial training in educational institutions and work places.