Job Recruitment/Employment in Nigeria: Senate Moves to Remove Age Limit for Job Seekers

Age limitation during job recruitment and employment in Nigeria has been a barrier to many in the course of searching for a white collar job(s). Most Nigerians to have lamented and frowned at age restrictions from employers of labour from Federal government jobs, state government and private recruitment.

Today, the Nigerian Senate asked the Federal Government of Nigeria to urge the Federal Ministry of Labour, Employment and Productivity to scrape age barrier or limit for employment and for job seekers.

Before now, the age limit for most of the jobs in Nigeria ranges from 18 -30years, example is the npower job recruitment (age limit 30years), Nigeria Police recruitment (age limit 25 years) amongst others.

The Senate on Wednesday urged the federal government to direct the Ministry of Labour and Employment to set up a committee to review the age limit for job seekers in the country, to allow competent applicants to be employed by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government.

The call was sequel to a motion by Ibrahim Gobir where he noted that recruitment requirements of MDAs and other private bodies, which set age barriers, “inadvertently excludes and marginalizes skillful and competent prospective applicants from participating in such exercises.”

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He said due to the high unemployment rate in the country, many graduates spend up to 10 years seeking employment and this puts them in a disadvantaged position by no fault of theirs.

Many individuals resort to falsifying their ages, all in a bid to fall within the required age limit for them to be gainfully employed, he said.

“This development, where a person believes he is unemployable, can lead them to embracing criminal activities and further increase the growing crime rate and insecurity in the country.”

In his contribution, Bala Na’Allah reminded the Senate of the federal government’s embargo on employment over 13 years ago.

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The embargo period, he said, must be factored into the review of age limit by the Ministry of Labour and Productivity for prospective job seekers in the country.

“The period that there have been embargo by the federal government in itself should be considered in the review of age limit. For example, if the age limit is 23, we must now add the 13 or 14 years of embargo on employment to the age already earmarked for employment, so that the age will be plus thirteen, because it is the government on its own that placed the embargo on employment.

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“There cannot be justification for you to place embargo on employment, then at the same time expect graduates to remain at the age they were during the period of the embargo.

“I think in the review, that has to be taken into account, and therefore, the age limit can now be raised in addition to the established age. That should be the legal verdict for the review,” he said.

In his remark, the Senate president, Ahmad Lawan, urged the Labour ministry to look into the issue promptly and find a solution.

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