Search results

1 – 10 of over 2000
Article
Publication date: 23 October 2020

Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale, Olufikayo Kunle Oyelade, Mofeyisara Oluwatoyin Omobowale and Olugbenga Samuel Falase

The index case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was reported on 27 February 2020. Subsequently, the exponential increase in cases has brought about the partial and total lockdown of cities…

Abstract

Purpose

The index case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was reported on 27 February 2020. Subsequently, the exponential increase in cases has brought about the partial and total lockdown of cities, the closure of all schools and the shutdown of government offices in order to curtail the spread of COVID-19. COVID-19 and its subsequent drastic curtailment policies have implications on vulnerable groups, especially, informal workers who constitute about 70% of the active working population in Nigeria. This reflective discourse critically engages the plight of informal workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

Design/methodology/approach

The research was guided by the epistemology of pandemic interpretationism. It engages contextual reflections of the plight of economically vulnerable informal workers in Nigeria. Data were collected from secondary sources while rapid case studies were conducted with ten informal workers in Lagos and Ibadan. Afterwards, data were contextually analysed.

Findings

Economically vulnerable informal workers in Nigeria have contextually interpreted COVID-19 as an elite disease, imported into Nigeria by the wealthy. In addition, the mass population views COVID-19 containment measures such as lockdowns, movement restrictions and stay-at-home orders as elitist policies, which are aimed at protecting the wealthy and frustrating the poor and economically vulnerable who live on the fringes of poverty. Many informal workers have slipped below the poverty line while struggling to supply livelihood needs, as they were unable to earn daily income and cannot access palliatives. Consequently, they are of the opinion that “Hunger Virus is deadlier than Corona Virus”.

Originality/value

This paper is a contextual reflection on the plight of economically vulnerable informal workers during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and movement restrictions in Nigeria. It presents pandemic interpretationism as an epistemological guide and reflectively examines the poverty impact of COVID-19 on the Nigerian informal sector via contextual analyses of secondary data and rapid case studies. The paper uncovers various COVID-19 livelihood experiences and the responses of the informal workers; furthermore, it provides policy recommendations.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 40 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Youth Exclusion and Empowerment in the Contemporary Global Order: Existentialities in Migrations, Identity and the Digital Space
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-777-3

Article
Publication date: 31 October 2022

Nathaniel Ayinde Olatunde, Angel Manuel Gento Municio and Imoleayo Abraham Awodele

Disruption caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to the ways and manners businesses are conducted worldwide is phenomenon. The study therefore examined the survival…

Abstract

Purpose

Disruption caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to the ways and manners businesses are conducted worldwide is phenomenon. The study therefore examined the survival strategies adopted by quantity surveying firms (QSFs) in Lagos State, Nigeria, with the intention of improving their performance.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a systematic sampling method to select three QSFs from 20 local government areas in the state. Of the 60 QSFs contacted for interview, only 42 agreed to participate. A questionnaire was designed to collect the required qualitative information, which was then analyzed using content analysis.

Findings

The results revealed that the main survival strategies adopted by QSFs in Lagos State, Nigeria, during the COVID-19 disruptions were downsizing, contract staffing, salary cuts, work from home and service negotiation strategies.

Research limitations/implications

Due to the chosen research approach, the research results may not be generalizable. The incidence of the pandemic and the socio-economic situation of the study area have to be considered.

Practical implications

The survival strategies employed by QSFs in Lagos Nigeria in the middle of COVID-19 are palliative (unsustainable) as the impact of the disruptions is biting hard on QSFs in Lagos Nigeria as such a more robust and sustainable method to enhance the performance of QSFs in the study area.

Originality/value

This study attempted to unearth the survival strategies of QSFs amidst COVID-19 in Lagos State, Nigeria, with the aim of improving the performance of such firms.

Details

African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, vol. 14 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-0705

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 December 2017

Taiwo Aderemi and Fidelis Ogwumike

The primary motive of a minimum wage policy is to provide a wage floor for poorly paid workers and improve their welfare. In Nigeria, real minimum wage declined by 60 per cent…

Abstract

Purpose

The primary motive of a minimum wage policy is to provide a wage floor for poorly paid workers and improve their welfare. In Nigeria, real minimum wage declined by 60 per cent between 1974 and 2011, thus reducing the welfare of workers. The wage gap between low skilled and high skilled workers have also widened over the years in favour of the latter. There are concerns that the series of minimum wage increase in Nigeria may not be welfare-enhancing. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

This study examined the welfare effects of minimum wage increase in Nigeria using a computable general equilibrium model. The model was calibrated using a 2006 Social Accounting Matrix and four sets of scenarios (20, 35, 50 and 140 per cent wage increases), were simulated.

Findings

The findings show that employers substituted other labour categories for minimum wage workers. This increases the wage rates of other labour. The consumer price index also increased as firms partly pass-on increased labour cost to consumers. Generally, the simulations show that minimum wage policies worsen the welfare of its intended beneficiaries, due to negative impact on prices and employment.

Originality/value

This study deviates from existing studies on minimum wage in Nigeria, by providing a proper disaggregation of the labour market that represents the Nigerian economy. In this regard, the informal sector was accommodated and the potential impact of the minimum wage on this sector determined. It also adopted the equivalent variation welfare measure which incorporates price and consumption effects in measuring welfare.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 44 no. 12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 June 2008

Sola Fajana

This paper aims to address the issue of unionisation of the largely non‐unionised informal economic activities as a strategy for achieving decent work and pay as well as promoting…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to address the issue of unionisation of the largely non‐unionised informal economic activities as a strategy for achieving decent work and pay as well as promoting national development in Nigeria.

Design/methodology/approach

The adopted methods include review of archival information and survey of the perspectives of the stakeholders in Nigeria's industrial relations system. To facilitate the realisation of expected developmental objectives, monitoring, evaluation, capacity building, organising and advocacy roles are recommended jointly and severally for the stakeholders.

Findings

It was found that decent work and pay, which would assist poverty minimisation and thus national development, would be furthered by unionisation of the informal sector. At the same time, there are many barriers faced by unions in seeking to organise in the latter area.

Research limitations/implications

The research focuses only on aspects of informal working; the informal economy represents a multi‐facetted and spatially diverse phenomenon.

Originality/value

This paper provides a detailed review of employment relations in non‐standard work in Africa, an area much neglected in the literature.

Details

Employee Relations, vol. 30 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 July 2020

Roberto Dell'Anno and Omobola Adu

This paper contributes to the literature concerning the Nigerian informal economy (IE) by estimating its size from 1991 to 2017 and identifying the major causes.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper contributes to the literature concerning the Nigerian informal economy (IE) by estimating its size from 1991 to 2017 and identifying the major causes.

Design/methodology/approach

A structural equation approach in the form of the multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) method is used to estimate the size of the Nigerian IE.

Findings

The results indicate that vulnerable employment and urban population as a percentage of the total population are the main drivers of the IE in Nigeria. The IE in Nigeria ranges from 38.83% to 57.55% of gross domestic product (GDP).

Research limitations/implications

As a result of the empirical challenges in the estimation of the IE, the estimates of Nigeria's IE are considered to be rough estimates.

Originality/value

The authors calibrated the MIMIC model with the official estimate of the informal sector published by the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This was an attempt to combine the national accounting approach, to estimate the size of IE, with the MIMIC approach, and to estimate the trend of informality.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 47 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Youth Exclusion and Empowerment in the Contemporary Global Order: Contexts of Economy, Education and Governance
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-497-7

Article
Publication date: 6 January 2020

Darius Ikyanyon, Phil Johnson and Jeremy Dawson

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the institutional context influences human resource management (HRM) policies in the public and private sector in Nigeria.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the institutional context influences human resource management (HRM) policies in the public and private sector in Nigeria.

Design/methodology/approach

The convergent parallel mixed methods approach was adopted for this study. Survey data were collected from 122 HR managers across public and private sector organizations in Nigeria as well as 13 qualitative interviews. ANCOVA was used to analyse quantitative data while thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data in order to understand the influence of institutions on HRM in the public and private sector in Nigeria.

Findings

Findings indicate that while coercive, mimetic and normative institutional mechanisms influenced HRM in both the public and private sector, the influence of coercive mechanisms was significantly higher in the public sector, largely due to the poor enforcement of labour legislation and attempts by private sector organizations to adopt neo-liberal approaches to HRM.

Originality/value

The study provides an understanding of the institutional context of HRM in Nigeria by highlighting how varying degrees of pressures from the environment create internal diversity in HRM approaches in the public and private sector.

Details

Employee Relations: The International Journal, vol. 42 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 August 2021

Ikechukwu D. Nwaka and Kalu E. Uma

Controversy in the literature exists over whether self-employment is driven by worker’s deliberate entrepreneurial choices (pull factors) or an indeliberate subsistence employment…

Abstract

Controversy in the literature exists over whether self-employment is driven by worker’s deliberate entrepreneurial choices (pull factors) or an indeliberate subsistence employment option (push factors) in developing countries. It is therefore very important to investigate whether the self-employed are the dynamic entrepreneurial group or the subsistence-oriented group. In this chapter, the authors examine the driving forces behind the plausible growth of self-employment in urban and rural Nigeria by analyzing the self-employment choices as a function of employment’s differences in predicted earnings, human capital, demographic and family characteristics. Using the 2010/2011 and 2012/2013 waves of the General Household Survey Panel data for Nigeria, this chapter utilizes the Random Effects Regression Models (OLS and Probit Models). This chapter finds that the predicted individual earning differences between self- and paid-employment has a negative significant effect on self-employment choices – contrary to developed countries’ evidence. In other words, overwhelmingly the poor are “entrepreneurs.” This therefore means that self-employment choice is driven by the necessity of survival – the subsistence self-employed groups rather than the dynamic entrepreneurial hypothesis. The implication of these finding is unique and interesting for an African country such as Nigeria where the self-employees are vulnerable to poverty and perhaps an involuntary employment option conditioned by economic failures.

Article
Publication date: 1 September 2000

Jonathan C. Morris

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and…

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Abstract

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Details

Management Research News, vol. 23 no. 9/10/11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-9174

Keywords

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