By Ugo Inyama
Working hard in an economy where jobs no longer guarantee survival
Nigeria never sleeps. Before sunrise, buses groan, markets hum, offices fill. It looks like momentum. It looks like productivity. It looks like progress.
It isn’t.
Millions are working. Millions are struggling. This is Nigeria’s employment paradox: activity without advancement.
The issue is not laziness. Nigerians work relentlessly. The issue is that work no longer works. It no longer feeds families, builds savings, or creates stability. Employment figures count motion while masking hardship. Many who are “employed” earn too little to live securely, save meaningfully, or plan ahead. The economy appears active. Households feel trapped.
Degrees, Desks and Diminished Returns
For graduates, the contradiction is sharper. Education was sold as a ladder. It now feels like a queue.
Degrees no longer guarantee relevance or reward. Many accept low-paying roles unrelated to their training. Others drift into informal work, qualified on paper but undervalued in practice. They are employed, yet detached from the futures they prepared for. Education has not failed; its promise has thinned.
The gig economy adds polish to instability. Ride-hailing and delivery platforms advertise flexibility but deliver volatility. Workers absorb fuel costs, maintenance, health risks, and erratic demand. Algorithms dictate income. Contracts are rare. Effort expands. Security does not.
Busy Streets, Fragile Lives
The informal sector keeps Nigeria alive. Traders, artisans, drivers, farmers — they power daily commerce. They also shoulder daily risk.
No contracts. No pensions. No health cover. No certainty.
A fuel hike, an illness, a security shock can erase years of effort. This is work that sustains survival, not progress. There is movement, but no momentum.
The public sector mirrors the same dysfunction. Agencies are crowded because employment has become political currency. Productivity is secondary. Performance incentives are weak. Salaries shrink under inflation. The state employs many, delivers little, and rewards presence over output.
The Cost of Illusion
When work offers no pathway forward, people disengage. Loyalty feels unsafe. Migration becomes logical. Productivity declines because survival replaces ambition.
The starting point for reform is clarity: not all jobs are equal. Counting employment without measuring quality distorts reality. Work that does not pay a living wage, build skills, or provide security is not economic success. It is managed precarity.
Infrastructure remains the backbone of real employment. Reliable electricity, transport, and digital connectivity determine whether firms grow or merely endure. Too many businesses operate on generators, absorbing costs that suffocate expansion. Growth cannot thrive on emergency power.
The public sector must evolve from employer of last resort to driver of value. Fewer workers, better paid and held accountable, would outperform bloated payrolls drained by inefficiency. Technology should measure output, not attendance.
Small and medium enterprises offer the most credible route to job creation. Yet they face punishing borrowing costs, policy unpredictability, and infrastructure gaps. Affordable finance, regulatory consistency, and fair procurement access would unlock hiring. Many businesses are capable. They are simply constrained.
Education must realign with economic demand. Technical and vocational skills, healthcare, agro-processing, renewable energy, and digital services offer tangible growth. Certificates alone are no longer currency. Capability is.
Informal workers should be incentivised into formal systems through simplicity and benefit, not coercion. Easy registration, access to insurance, pensions, and growth-oriented credit can stabilise fragile livelihoods. Formalisation should unlock opportunity, not impose burden.
Employment should guarantee dignity. It should provide security. It should reward effort.
In Nigeria today, it often delivers motion without progress.
Until policy shifts from counting activity to building foundations that make work genuinely productive, the country will remain what it already is: busy, exhausted, applauded and economically stalled.
*Ugo Inyama writes from African Digital Governance Manchester,UK.
Ugo@africandgc.org
Leave a comment