The worry of ‘How will I get a job?’ and ‘Is there a job for me after I graduate?’ is a great concern for a lot of people, especially the youth, in Africa.
Unemployment
Unemployment is a situation or a state where an individual, who is employable, fit to work and actively searching for a job is unable to find work. It is a great challenge to any nation and has a negative connotation to the economy.
Unemployment also affects an individual’s mental health and can result to mental health conditions such as depression when people are unable to meet their needs.
Nigeria as a country recorded a 33.3 increase in unemployment last year due to the influence of the COVID 19 pandemic on the country’s economy which incapacitated most businesses and companies.
The Covid 19 pandemic setback has caused an awakening in a good number of youths in Nigeria and they have embraced the need to learn digital skills as an alternative means to traditional employment.
Here are some digital skills Nigerians have mastered and are making meaningful living from. They are of value to anyone who cares to adjust.
1. Affiliate marketing: over 20k Nigerian youth have ventured into affiliate marketing. Affiliate Marketing is a business model where you help a company promote their products and when you make a sale on any of the products, you get paid a commission.
2. Social Media Marketing is another form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve a business or organization’s marketing goals. This includes WhatsApp marketing, email marketing and many other social media platforms.
3. Digital marketing: Digital marketing is all about advertising through digital channels.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This can simply be described as the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to a website, usually through organic (unpaid) search engine results.
5. Content creation and Copywriting: Content creation is the act of generating information and ideas that appeal to targeted audiences and buyers, while copywriting is an act of writing focused on marketing and advertising a product.
