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Article Title:
FROM FLEXIBLE LABOUR MARKET TO PRECARIOUS LABOUR: UNHEALTHY FATE OF NIGERIAN WORKERS
| Abstract: The structure of employment and labour markets has witnessed tremendous changes in the past few decades especially in the developing economies. One of such changes has been the emergence of flexible labour markets. At inception, the rationale behind the flexible labour market policy was to promote work-life balance. As it is, the flexible Nigerian labour market policy has inadvertently given rise to non-standard work arrangements which have been exploited by employers to the point of precarious labour. Thus the archetypical non-standard “worker” is vulnerable, insecure, inferior, lacking in voice, striped of collective representation, poorly paid, denied of the standard employment relationship and unfortunate victims of unhealthy and unsafe practices at the workplace. The purpose of this paper presented in qualitative method using information gathered from secondary sources is to evaluate the concept of precarious labour as a feature of Nigerian labour market. The paper states that considering the current plight of non-standard cum precarious workers in the workplace a number of measures need to be adopted to tackle the monster. For instance, the welfare of the citizenry is one of the cardinal principles of good governance and this should not be sacrificed in the guise of promoting Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and diverting scarce resources towards economic transformation. By the same token, management should realize that healthy labour force is sine qua non to optimal organizational performance while the organized labour need to be proactive and rise above the confines of rhetoric and innuendos. More importantly, employees under the non-standard working arrangement should give themselves voice by striving for collective representation in the workplace. However, the lesson to be drawn from this paper is that the high level of unemployment occasioned by recession appears to have lured employees into accepting vulnerable, insecure and low paying jobs as survival strategy which in turn is susceptible to employment right abuses. |
| Keywords: Labour market, Labour market Flexibility; Non standard work; Precarious Labour |
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