The National Bureau of Statistics has revealed in its Nigeria Online Recruitment Report Q3 2016 that online job application dipped in the third quarter of 2016.
According to the report, there was a 67% fall in online job application when compared to total applications recorded in the third quarter of 2016.
The number of applications was considerably lower than in the third quarter of 2016; there were a total of 266,797 applications in the third quarter of 2016, compared to 815,163 applications in the same quarter of 2015.
By Contrast, the number of vacancies increased slightly relative to the previous period; in the third quarter of 2016 there were 14,112 vacancies, compared to 14,005 in the third quarter of 2015.
The report also showed that trade/Services remained the sector to attract the most applications (40.7%), as well as to advertise for the most vacancies (73.2%).
Oil & Gas/Mining and Engineering were the two sectors to attract the highest amount of applications per vacancy, although at 80 and 68 respectively, the numbers are low relative to the previous quarter. As expected, the report showed that Lagos remained the state to account for the largest number of applicants and vacancies.
While there are many openings online, there are huge population of unemployed and under employed youths in Nigeria. In the last employment survey released by the NBS, there are more concerns about under-employment in Nigeria
More importantly, it is convenient to conclude that the raging economic recession which began in the second quarter of 2016 is responsible for the fall in the number of application; some analysts share contrary view.
The rise of Ponzi Schemes such as MMM Nigeria, Givers Forum and other clones of the same ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes have been attributed for discouraging youths in applying for jobs online. The perspective is buttressed by the fact that most of these jobs are too few for the mammoth application that floods to them.
While this perspective cannot be proven, the fact that nearly 3 million Nigerians are members of MMM Nigeria Ponzi Scheme. The scheme had in December frozen all accounts claiming it prevented its system from crashing.
However, analysts with this view added that should application increase drastically, then it will be more plausible that many youths found succour in Ponzi Schemes to boycott online jobs.
