Youth unemployment and its consequences in Calabar metropolis: Need for government intervention

Abstract

In this paper, consequences of youth unemployment in Nigeria were examined using Calabar metropolis in Cross River State as a case study. The literature is full of scholarly research on the social phenomenon of youth unemployment around the globe. This phenomenon has continued in Nigeria in the face of unfulfilled political promises of job creation by successive governments. This present study has become necessary given the increasing number of youths that migrate into the cities on a daily basis in search of non-existent jobs and the consequent increasing rate of insecurity to lives and property which major cities in Nigeria have been experiencing in recent time. With the help of structured questionnaire randomly administered on some residents of Calabar Metroplis, the study observed that many social problems in the nature of crime, prostitution, hunger, poverty and general structural inadequacies are mainly the consequences of unemployment among the youths. Based on the findings, the paper concludes that youth unemployment does no good to any society. The authors recommend among other things the introduction of safety nets in the form of unemployment welfare benefits to unemployed youths; create decent jobs, as well as free mandatory entrepreneurial education for self reliance in all tertiary institutions in order to avert the consequences of youth unemployment in the country.