Employment: Definition, Factors and Poverty

EMPLOYMENT means to be engaged in a job or occupation.

UNEMPLOYMENT is having no paid job or to be out of job. It can also be explained to be an involuntary idleness.

 

FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYMENT

1. Artificial barriers to geographical mobility of labour across the various state-based sub-labour markets.
2. Culturally-biased employment practices.
3. Parochial practices in employment due to lack of trust.
4. Increase in population growth vis-à-vis declining growth in employment opportunities.
5. Rural-urban drift of population

POVERTY is a condition of absence or poor availability of material needs of the affected people.

 

HOW CAN EMPLOYMENT ALLEVIATE POVERTY

The problem of alleviating poverty can be adequately solved through full employment in the following ways.:

1. It can help to shape and increase the pace of economic growth and employment in the country.
2. Full employment will increase the level of savings and investment in a country
3. Employment brings about high quality of life while unemployment promotes low quality of life.
4. The person feeds very well.
5. Clothes himself or herself adequately.
6. Lives in a comfortable home.
7. Lives responsibly
8. Lives an independent life.

 

GUARANTEED EMPLOYMENT

This occurs when workers are not laid off indiscriminately by their employers and  some factors are responsible for guaranteed employment.

 

1. Free Education: Education must be generously made free and accessible to the poor but willing students. The certificates obtained after educational pursuits remain one way to guarantee employment.
2. Provision of medical care: When workers are healthy and suffer from no debilitating diseases, they will be able to work effectively and they will not experience any threat of or  termination of appointment. Government should support the need for free medical services to the people.
3. Rural development: The rural areas need to be developed so as to forestall the movement of people from the rural areas to the urban areas.
4. Self-employment: There is a great need  for the idea of self-employment to be promoted to absorb the ever-growing number of graduates from the higher institutions.
5. Development of the agricultural sector of the economy: Farmers and potential farmers must be encouraged through the provision of loans and other forms of assistance.
6. Development of small scale enterprises: Small scale enterprises and the informal sector of the economy should be developed.
7. Commitment to employment at the local level: There must be a clear commitment on the part of government to create more productive employment, especially at the local government area.

 

REVISION  QUESTIONS:

1. Full employment means that

• All must be working
• Only those qualified and willing to work find work
• Those in disguised employment form part of employed labour
• Account is taken of those working with government

2. Poverty is a condition of

• Affluence
• Poor availability of material needs
• Parochial practices
• Population growth

3. (a) What is poverty?

(b)  In what ways can employment help to solve the problem of poverty?

 

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT:

1. What is a stable employment?
2. Identify and discuss the factors that can ensure guaranteed employment in Nigeria.

 

See also

CONSTITUTED AUTHORITY

Law and Order

What is Cultism?

SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES IN INTER-COMMUNAL SOCIETIES

INTER-COMMUNAL RELATIONSHIP