A report by the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) has disclosed that no fewer than 925 trades are hard to fill in Nigeria’s labour market.

The ITF Director General, Joseph Ari, disclosed this yesterday at a World Press Conference in Abuja.

He cited the six areas to include agro-allied businesses, metal and solid minerals, as well as oil and gas-related industry.

Others are construction, light manufacturing and services industry.

He said the situation has persisted, despite the spiraling unemployment that the country is currently facing.

Ari disclosed that the findings followed a research conducted by the ITF, in conjunction with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in April 2018.

He said the research focused on national skills gap assessment in six priority sectors of the economy.

He explained: “The breakdown showed that 19.7 per cent vacancies were in the housing sector, 13.9 per cent in petrochemical sector, and 14 .7 per cent in other goods.

“Also, 11.4 per cent was found in the auto industry, 10.3 per cent in textiles, 10.1 per cent in steel, 8.9 percent in the services sector, and 3.3 per cent in the leather industry.”

The DG further revealed that 15.7 per cent of all the hard-to-fill vacancies were due to the lack of technical skills.

He said 11.8 per cent are due to lack of basic IT skills, 9.2 per cent due to lack of advanced IT skills, while between 9.2 per cent and 7.5 per cent of the vacancies, due to the lack of requisite soft skills.

Ari stressed that in addressing this paradox, the ITF management has unveiled a list of implementable programmes for year 2018.

These include the National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP), Women Skills Empowerment Programme (WOSEP), Air-conditioning and Refrigeration (training on wheels), as well as the Skills Training and Empowerment programme for the Physically Challenged (STEPP-C).

“In all, these programmes are expected to train about 13,000 Nigerians in a five-month period.

The breakdown of Nigerians to be trained includes 11,100 youths under the NISDP, 360 women, under the WOSEP, 75 youths in air-conditioning and refrigeration, and 50 youths in designing and garment making.”