Okezie, who is the President of the Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, spoke with our correspondent in Lagos on Monday .
“The federal government must invest in the NDE more to address the rising unemployment challenges.
“ The NDE is a department under the Ministry of Labour, which is mandated by law to retrain unemployed youth to skilled manpower.
“ The department has been in existence for over 25 years but not adequately mobilised,” he said.
Okezie said that many young people must begin to foray into entrepreneurship as a means of mitigating the rising unemployment.
He said that the federal government should continue to enhance the business climate, to attract investment into the country.
“Key infrastructure such as reliable energy must be available in order to boost the real sector.
“ Enhancing productivity will create employment opportunities and value additions to the economy,” he said.
According to him, the federal government should build new industries and privatise them decades later to create employment opportunities for the teeming youth.
NAN reports that Nigeria’s unemployment rate rose to 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday.
The report came several quarters after the bureau released its last report in 2018.
The new rate is an increase from 23.1 per cent unemployed in the third quarter of 2018.
Nigeria’s unemployment rate had increased from 18.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2017 to 23.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2018.