The Federal Government has revealed that 59 million Nigerians are currently employed by 41 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSEMEs).
This was disclosed by Dr Dikko Radda, Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) in Nigeria on Tuesday at the launch of a five-day programme on National Business Skills Development Initiative (NBSDI).
The SMEDAN boss also stated that the most recent national MSMEs survey of 2017 revealed that there are 41.5 million MSMEs employing over 59.6 million Nigerians, representing 76.5% of the nation’s labour force and contributing 49.8 % to nominal Gross Domestic Product and exports.
What SMEDAN is saying
Radda revealed that the National Business Skills Development Initiative was designed to promote and provide skills in the areas of entrepreneurship, vocational skills and empowerment materials to boost capacity development with Nigerians.
‘’The NBSDI enhances youth engagement in productive ventures, thereby ensuring they earn income through filling the artisanal gap in the country,” he said.
“The initiative is designed to ensure that more professional services will be provided by local and well-trained young artisans, leading to reduction in job loses to immigrants from neighbouring countries.
“It seeks to pursue a drastic reduction in dependency poverty as most of the out-of-school youths, who still rely on stipends from parents, are empowered to become self-reliant,” he added.
He said that the NBSDI programme is being implemented in all the states of the federation and FCT, where 5,365 entrepreneurs will be impacted with entrepreneurship, vocational skills and empowerment materials at the rate of 145 entrepreneurs per state and Abuja.
What you should know
Recall Nairametrics reported in September that 20% of fully employed Nigerians lost their jobs during the covid pandemic lockdown of 2020, showing the economic impact of the pandemic on Africa’s largest economy.
This was disclosed in a report titled: “The Impact of COVID-19 on Business Enterprises in Nigeria,” by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It added that 81% of companies interviewed experienced a decline in revenue, while 73% highlighted liquidity and cash constraints.