AjanleKoko:

When you guys say 'standard of living', how do you mean exactly?
The standard of living in Nigeria is quite low, very low in fact. However, cost of living in the urban areas is high.

The 60k plus is interesting; I agree, that should also be the national standard. If government is paying that amount to fresh grads, private sector should benchmark with that as base pay, and possibly augment with some allowances to ameliorate cost of living. But the reality is, graduates are not really worth that much in Nigeria.

The peculiarity of the Nigerian situation is the ratio of urban to rural areas. Most of the states in Nigeria are rural states, hence, all most all of our graduates are forced to seek employment in urban areas where cost of living range from high to incredulous.

Secondly, I don't know anywhere in the the developed world where graduates are worth their pay. An average graduate in reality costs the employer money. Case in point, I calculated how much my employer spent on my development and the figure was around £15000 in my first year alone. Add salary + the time spent on mentoring which I coudn't quantify, the figure gets closer to £60,0000 or more.

The reality in my opinion is that graduates aren't paid what employers think they are worth (that figure will be zero anywhere in the world), the pay is based on the how important sustainability is to the company.

no diff b/w naija graduate and elementary school graduate.

look at it: naija graduates cannot operate power plant even after 10 yrs working in the same power plant and elemenatry school graduate either, even the profs no no how.

nakedall:

no diff b/w naija graduate and elementary school graduate.

look at it: naija graduates cannot operate power plant even after 10 yrs working in the same power plant and elemenatry school graduate either, even the profs no no how.

 

Your case is complicated. What has operating a power plant got to do with the topic of discourse?

I feel some Nigerian employers use this term (unemployable) as an excuse to avoid giving on the job training to new recruits cos no matter how competent and experienced an individual is,there might still be need for induction(general standard) and on the job training

Some of the comments here are just frightening and i really hope they don't reflect facts on ground  

Who is unemployable,anyone?

@naijababe,
some sense in what u said and i can understand where u r coming from. In Nig only MNCs n some banks take that pain of investing in train especially 4 their grad/mgt trainees. They understand how systems r built to last. Many Nig companies(mostly one-man biz) would rather go 2 d media to lament that grad r unemployable.

@ op, btw 80k-200k per month plus allowances depending on the industry of course.

@ ajirebi20 I cant believe that you prefer a graduate from Niger to a Nigerian graduate. So the education system in Niger is better than that of Nigeria? Too bad!

naijababe:

Secondly, I don't know anywhere in the the developed world where graduates are worth their pay. An average graduate in reality costs the employer money. Case in point, I calculated how much my employer spent on my development and the figure was around £15000 in my first year alone. Add salary + the time spent on mentoring which I coudn't quantify, the figure gets closer to £60,0000 or more.

The reality in my opinion is that graduates aren't paid what employers think they are worth (that figure will be zero anywhere in the world), the pay is based on the how important sustainability is to the company.

Interesting, but I did not mean 'worth' in that context, i.e. personal worth. I'm talking about the market factors, demand and supply.
When I say Nigerian graduates are not worth that much, I mean in terms of demand. There are not so many companies in the Nigerian labour market, that are looking to hire fresh grads. At least not in recent times. That's what I mean.

Remember some years back, when banks were strictly hiring graduates for all entry positions. Now they have taken it down two notches, and are hiring a lot of OND grads for their front office (teller) work. Time was when GT was the only bank doing this, and they got a lot of flak from the public. Now virtually every bank is doing this.

Also, there's been a lot of flak for the oil companies in the past, for hiring 'contract' staff en masse for a lot of positions, and paying them a lot less than the regular staff, and providing no benefits. Ironically this works the opposite in developed countries: contract staff don't have benefits but are paid a lot more than permanent staff.
Nowadays a lot of the MNCs have been hiring contract staff, and have used youth corpers to do their low-level entry jobs, while the contract wages have risen to appreciable levels in the oil companies.

After all said and done, what we are trying to establish here is: what is the fair wage for a fresh graduate? What should be the minimum and maximum that employers should pay? That's the question here.

A 100,000 naira at least.

[/quote]
[quote author=ajirebi20 link=topic=750574.msg9067751#msg9067751 date=1315035181]
I was talking about mental training. Most Nigerian graduates are just not there, actually all of them. It is a shame that Nigerian universities are allowed to admit students at all. most are not more than glorified middle-schools in the West. My HS nephew here has more common sense that all the Nigerian graduates I have seen so far. It is really pathetic the state of our education.


I will never hire ANYONE who graduates from a Nigerian school. Niger graduates are far more safer.


Again I am sorry to be so blunt. I am a sucker for truth.

I think you are just a sucker!

nakedall:

no diff b/w naija graduate and elementary school graduate.

look at it: naija graduates cannot operate power plant even after 10 yrs working in the same power plant and elemenatry school graduate either, even the profs no no how.

 

You are a bona fide slowpoke that makes careless statements of no substance. What do you know about the operations of any power plant? Or you just sit in the comforts of your sofa and type utter nonsense to feel intelligent? Seriously, your ignorance is stupifying, you don't know and do not know you do not know-what a malady.
If the type of education you have had is what in your feverish mind is what entails a good education to you then I don't want to be educated your style.
In case you don't know, when it comes to machineries and their operations, regardless of how long you have been with the machine, there is a limit to how well you can operate, maintain and use the machine unless you have the machine manual from the manufacturers. This has nothing to do with whether you have a carton full of ivy league degrees, you still have to go through technical training by the company on how to use the machine and even the training is limited to what they want you to know about the machine. It has very little to do with one's capability but everything to do with protection of certain patented technical-know. For instance, I am graduate trainee in a production company in Lagos, the overall chief engineer is a very young Philipino dude brought in by the heavy machinery manufacturing company whose machines we use in our own company for production. From information gathered the dude has been with manufacturing company for close to 10 years and has insider knowledge of their machine designs, drafts, methods, programming and so on. Now how do you reconcile that with somebody that is supposed to work on an already finished machine? Abi you think say na agidi dem de take learn. What an ignoramus!

nakedall:

no diff b/w naija graduate and elementary school graduate.

look at it: naija graduates cannot operate power plant even after 10 yrs working in the same power plant and elemenatry school graduate either, even the profs no no how.

 

You are a bona fide slowpoke that makes careless statements of no substance. What do you know about the operations of any power plant? Or you just sit in the comforts of your sofa and type utter nonsense to feel intelligent? Seriously, your ignorance is stupifying, you don't know and do not know you do not know-what a malady.
If the type of education you have had is what in your feverish mind is what entails a good education to you then I don't want to be educated your style.
In case you don't know, when it comes to machineries and their operations, regardless of how long you have been with the machine, there is a limit to how well you can operate, maintain and use the machine unless you have the machine manual from the manufacturers. This has nothing to do with whether you have a carton full of ivy league degrees, you still have to go through technical training by the company on how to use the machine and even the training is limited to what they want you to know about the machine. It has very little to do with one's capability but everything to do with protection of certain patented technical-know. For instance, I am graduate trainee in a production company in Lagos, the overall chief engineer is a very young Philipino dude brought in by the heavy machinery manufacturing company whose machines we use in our own company for production. From information gathered the dude has been with manufacturing company for close to 10 years and has insider knowledge of their machine designs, drafts, methods, programming and so on. Now how do you reconcile that with somebody that is supposed to work on an already finished machine? Abi you think say na agidi dem de take learn. What an ignoramus!

AjanleKoko:

Interesting, but I did not mean 'worth' in that context, i.e. personal worth. I'm talking about the market factors, demand and supply.
When I say Nigerian graduates are not worth that much, I mean in terms of demand. There are not so many companies in the Nigerian labour market, that are looking to hire fresh grads. At least not in recent times. That's what I mean.

Remember some years back, when banks were strictly hiring graduates for all entry positions. Now they have taken it down two notches, and are hiring a lot of OND grads for their front office (teller) work. Time was when GT was the only bank doing this, and they got a lot of flak from the public. Now virtually every bank is doing this.

Also, there's been a lot of flak for the oil companies in the past, for hiring 'contract' staff en masse for a lot of positions, and paying them a lot less than the regular staff, and providing no benefits. Ironically this works the opposite in developed countries: contract staff don't have benefits but are paid a lot more than permanent staff.
Nowadays a lot of the MNCs have been hiring contract staff, and have used youth corpers to do their low-level entry jobs, while the contract wages have risen to appreciable levels in the oil companies.

After all said and done, what we are trying to establish here is: what is the fair wage for a fresh graduate? What should be the minimum and maximum that employers should pay? That's the question here.

Interesting!!!

This point really got me thinking. I think in the public sector, the min salary should be like 50k and max 80k

On the private sector, its becomes alit tricky, This is because jobs in the private sector are mostly contracts and

such a contract and its contents are made based on the applicants experience etc

AjanleKoko:

Interesting, but I did not mean 'worth' in that context, i.e. personal worth. I'm talking about the market factors, demand and supply.
When I say Nigerian graduates are not worth that much, I mean in terms of demand. There are not so many companies in the Nigerian labour market, that are looking to hire fresh grads. At least not in recent times. That's what I mean.

[b]Remember some years back, when banks were strictly hiring graduates for all entry positions. Now they have taken it down two notches, and are hiring a lot of OND grads for their front office (teller) work. T[/b]ime was when GT was the only bank doing this, and they got a lot of flak from the public. Now virtually every bank is doing this.

That tells you everything you need to know. I have friends, graduates, doing teller work in Nigerian banks, and I tell you I would hire a HS graduate from America before I hire these guys and most went to Unilag for engineering and graduated 2:1 and 2:2. In the US, teller work is mostly done by HS graduates in need of money before college or as a part-time job by college kids looking for extra change. No reasonable graduate would do that job for significant number of time, at least not for a living. Even at that, the people I'd seen doing that job in Nigeria were as incompetent as podunk.

But in Nigeria, that is what college grads are good for. Most can't even excel at the job. They lack the resourcefulness and independence that you'd expect from a college graduate.  I know of a college grad from OAU with a degree in business studies I wouldnt hire to work as a teller for me. The cases are scary and they are real and just pathetic.

That said, if I was a graduate of a Nigerian university, I still wouldnt hire myself. Knowing what I know now, it is funny that Nigeria is even allowed to run universities.

PS: To all haters, I am not talking about the Nigerian brain, here I am talking about the system and the people charged with preparing the future leaders. The system is broken. The ordinary Nigerian is smart, but the mentality and preparation are nothing to write about.

ajirebi20:

That tells you everything you need to know. I have friends, graduates, doing teller work in Nigerian banks, and I tell you I would hire a HS graduate from America before I hire these guys and most went to Unilag for engineering and graduated 2:1 and 2:2. In the US, teller work is mostly done by HS graduates in need of money before college or as a part-time job by college kids looking for extra change. No reasonable graduate would do that job for significant number of time, at least not for a living. Even at that, the people I'd seen doing that job in Nigeria were as incompetent as podunk.

But in Nigeria, that is what college grads are good for. Most can't even excel at the job. The like the resourcefullness and independence that you'd expect from a college graduate.  I know of a college grad from OAU with a degree in business studies I wouldnt hire to work as a teller for me. The cases are scary and they are real and just pathetic.

That said, if I was a graduate of a Nigerian university, I still wouldnt hire myself. Knowing what I know now, it is funny that Nigeria is even allowed to run universities.

PS: To all haters, I am not talking about the Nigerian brain, here I am talking about the system and the people charged with preparing the future leaders. The system is broken. The ordinary Nigerian is smart, but the mentality and preparation are nothing to write about.

Well, that is typical of most of the developing countries with large populations. Only Brazil and China seem to be exceptions. India, Pakistan, and Nigeria seem to be on the same train - high graduate unemployment, largely unemployable graduates. Out of the three, India is doing much better, and have better recognition.

That said, I think we should not derail from the argument. The issue of what quality are Nigerian graduates is of little relevance to the topic. We're trying to figure out how much university graduates in Nigeria should be paid. I have tried to work it out but since I'm not an economist, I haven't made much progress. Any ideas?

Ajirebi
OAU does not have business studies major. It's obvious that you are just making up all you're saying.

AjanleKoko:

Interesting, but I did not mean 'worth' in that context, i.e. personal worth. I'm talking about the market factors, demand and supply.
When I say Nigerian graduates are not worth that much, I mean in terms of demand. There are not so many companies in the Nigerian labour market, that are looking to hire fresh grads. At least not in recent times. That's what I mean.

Remember some years back, when banks were strictly hiring graduates for all entry positions. Now they have taken it down two notches, and are hiring a lot of OND grads for their front office (teller) work. Time was when GT was the only bank doing this, and they got a lot of flak from the public. Now virtually every bank is doing this.

Also, there's been a lot of flak for the oil companies in the past, for hiring 'contract' staff en masse for a lot of positions, and paying them a lot less than the regular staff, and providing no benefits. Ironically this works the opposite in developed countries: contract staff don't have benefits but are paid a lot more than permanent staff.
Nowadays a lot of the MNCs have been hiring contract staff, and have used youth corpers to do their low-level entry jobs, while the contract wages have risen to appreciable levels in the oil companies.

After all said and done, what we are trying to establish here is: what is the fair wage for a fresh graduate? What should be the minimum and maximum that employers should pay? That's the question here.

I know what you meant and I was just trying to point out other factors that would be used to determine their 'personal worth' as you said. Taking into account market forces and cost of keeping a job, I would say no less 40k for public sector and no more than 80k in the private sector for graduates in urban areas i.e Lagos, Warri, P.H and Abuja.

@ Ajirebi, you are being mischievous, would you not hire me still if my undergrad is from a naija uni and post grad from an abroad uni 

The One:

Ajirebi
OAU does not have business studies major. It's obvious that you are just making up all you're saying.

How old are you?

How dumb are you?

I told u you're lying and that's the smarterst thing you can say? So much for a fully baked graduate.

naijababe:

The peculiarity of the Nigerian situation is the ratio of urban to rural areas. Most of the states in Nigeria are rural states, hence, all most all of our graduates are forced to seek employment in urban areas where cost of living range from high to incredulous.

Secondly, I don't know anywhere in the the developed world where graduates are worth their pay. An average graduate in reality costs the employer money. Case in point, I calculated how much my employer spent on my development and the figure was around £15000 in my first year alone. Add salary + the time spent on mentoring which I coudn't quantify, the figure gets closer to £60,0000 or more.

The reality in my opinion is that graduates aren't paid what employers think they are worth (that figure will be zero anywhere in the world), the pay is based on the how important sustainability is to the company.

I wouldn't agree with the view expressed above based on personal experience.  As a graduate, I was employed into a role where the expectations are for me to hit the ground running, no one has the time or resource to train you on what they believe you should know already, not in a country where you have 120 smart candidates applying for a role. . . .the bar has been raised!

That asides, graduate recruits in law, consulting and Investment Banking are known to put in up to 90 hours of work a week. The street jingo "roundabout" describes a situation where graduates work overnight and on the following morning, call a cab who drops them at home, just for them to have a shower and change clothings, the same cab waits outside to take em back to work!!!!. . . .this happens all the time.

The One:

How dumb are you?

I told u you're lying and that's the smarterst thing you can say? So much for a fully baked graduate.

My guy forget the ignoramus jare! Obviously, the guy is insecure with himself and prolly has a low-self worth. That he went to school and wasted his own time is not an excuse to make uninformed remarks that bothers on his own experience as a mediocre who prolly got lucky and travelled abroad, he now wants to generalize and talk down on everyone. I am a graduate from a Nigerian University, not even that popular but I still will hold my own anywhere I go.
Besides, the crust of the topic is not about whether Nigerian grads are employable or not, if a simple thing can evade his comprehension ability then I am sorry for whoever sent him to school.

if a simple thing can evade his comprehension ability then I am sorry for whoever sent him to school.

me too.

A friend of mine that is a lecturer in the University told me that out of 90 graduate they produce yearly in the field of FISHERIES MANAGEMENT
only 10 know the theory of fingerlings production and 6 can actually spawn fish. It may interest you to know that
Uneducated person can learn how to hatch in a day.

On the issue Nigerian graduate should be paid base on their productivity but let the minmuim be 30k

PL

oc2fish:

A friend of mine that is a lecturer in the University told me that out of 90 graduate they produce yearly in the field of FISHERIES MANAGEMENT
only 10 know the theory of fingerlings production and 6 can actually spawn fish. It may interest you to know that
Uneducated person can learn how to hatch in a day.

On the issue Nigerian graduate should be paid base on their productivity but let the minmuim be 30k

PL

That your friend has NO business being a lecturer at the first place. Isn't he ashamed of such comment?

BTW, how do you measure productivity objectively?

violent:

I wouldn't agree with the view expressed above based on personal experience.  As a graduate, I was employed into a role where the expectations are for me to hit the ground running, no one has the time or resource to train you on what they believe you should know already, not in a country where you have 120 smart candidates applying for a role. . . .the bar has been raised[b][/b]!

That asides, graduate recruits in law, consulting and Investment Banking are known to put in up to 90 hours of work a week. The street jingo "roundabout" describes a situation where graduates work overnight and on the following morning, call a cab who drops them at home, just for them to have a shower and change clothings, the same cab waits outside to take em back to work!!!!. . . .this happens all the time.   

I stand fully corrected. I've an engineering background and while I am aware of the sudden penchant of IBs to nick engineering and physical sciences grads, I always assumed some drawndown period of training and mentoring before grads become fully up to speed.

naijababe:

I stand fully corrected. I've an engineering background and while I am aware of the sudden penchant of IBs to nick engineering and physical sciences grads, I always assumed some  drawndown period of training and mentoring before grads become fully up to speed.

there's actually a drawn-down period of training and mentoring, but more often than not, it is largely typified by associates and senior analysts passing all the grunt work to your desk and expecting results in the next hour or so. . . .coffees and pizzas are your best friend and when you should be closing work at 8:00pm, there's always a new client request to be filled before 8 am the following day.

Even interns experience this, it's the way of life, it's the way you're trained and mentored!

^ Oh well, I guess if no one's gonna die for your mistakes, then it's all good . No one will try that for my area o

naijababe:

^ Oh well, I guess if no one's gonna die for your mistakes, then it's all good  . No one will try that for my area o

well, it has its rewarding moments too, if it doesn't, you wouldn't find thousands trying to get their foot in the door.  I for one will probably have considered other careers like being a movie star.

violent:

well, it has its rewarding moments too, if it doesn't, you wouldn't find thousands trying to get their foot in the door.  I for one will probably have considered other careers like being a movie star.

Some people like money sha

naijababe:

Some people like money sha

no mind them!!!. . . you find em working in engineering coys when they should be serving their country by taking up teaching jobs in public schools.

Point of note, in the uk and USA, a certain percentage of your income goes on mandatory taxes and this shelves the take home down considerably, for example, a person earning 2000 GBP parts with 40% for taxes remaining 1200, pays minimum of 600 GBP for rent in a one room per month, remaining 600 GBP, then about 250 GBP for other logistic expenses, does he have anything left? The naija guy earns 120k and has roughly 100k left after expenses, provided family doesn't grab his pocket, I must say with the same job specs, a Nigerian employee is better off, the only advantage being that the essential amenities of life are better abroad than in naija, but we will reach uhuru someday, amen,