GIZ Releases Employment and Labour Market Analysis (ELMA)

GIZ Releases Employment and Labour Market Analysis (ELMA), a Landmark Report on Nigeria’s employment prospects for a Just Transition    

The Employment and Labour Market Analysis (ELMA) 2025 for Nigeria, is a detailed assessment of one of Africa's most complex and dynamic labour markets. The report offers policymakers, development practitioners, and private sector actors a rigorous foundation for action on Nigeria's employment challenges with a dedicated focus on the Just Transition for a green economy.  

What Is an ELMA? 

The Employment and Labour Market Analysis is a methodological framework developed by GIZ to provide a holistic picture of labour market conditions in a given country. It uses an integrated approach and examines three interconnected pillars: labour demand (what sectors and actors create jobs), labour supply (the skills and characteristics of the workforce), and employment promotion (the mechanisms that match the two); and the enabling policy framework.  The Nigeria 2025 edition is a comprehensive assessment containing analysis, data, and recommendations underscoring that a Just Transition is not simply an environmental imperative but a social and economic one: a framework ensuring that the shift toward a low-carbon economy is fair and inclusive, leaving no worker or community behind.  

Green Economy and Circular Economy: The Employment Frontiers 

The ELMA highlights several pillars of the emerging green economy in Nigeria, each carrying significant employment potential. In renewable energy, mini-grid and solar projects targeting off-grid communities are creating thousands of jobs in installation, maintenance, and distribution. Nigeria's Energy Transition Plan (ETP) sets a renewable energy target of 30,000 megawatts by 2030, requiring solar and wind power specialists, energy-efficient construction workers, and electric vehicle mechanics.  

Climate-smart agriculture is another critical frontier. Drought-resistant crops, solar-powered irrigation, and regenerative farming practices simultaneously boost productivity and build climate resilience. Agroforestry initiatives, including roles linked to the Great Green Wall project, are generating positions in nursery management, reforestation, and long-term ecosystem monitoring.  

The circular economy emerges prominently in the ELMA as a driver of new livelihoods. Improved waste management systems, including recycling, composting, and waste-to-energy projects, are already creating positions in logistics, plant operations, and product design. The Green Construction sector, expected to reach a market value of USD 1.9 billion by 2025, presents opportunities in sustainable building materials and energy-efficient systems, with potential to generate 60,000 to 240,000 jobs by 2030.  

Key Findings 

Framework Conditions 

Nigeria's path to a Just Transition is shaped by both its considerable natural endowments and deep structural vulnerabilities. Guided by strong policy frameworks, including the Energy Transition Plan, Climate Change Act, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), Long-Term Low Emissions Development Strategy, and the National Employment Policy, all of which emphasize and provide direction for inclusive growth and job creation, Nigeria is placed strategically to benefit from a green economy. The country’s natural resources also provide a solid foundation for a low-carbon economy. However, persistent challenges, such as the energy infrastructure crisis, with only a third of installed electricity capacity delivered and rural areas receiving just 27% of grid-connected supply, underscores the urgency of accelerating the renewable energy transition. Poor road networks and fragmented value chains raise the cost of doing business in green sectors, while governance weaknesses, a 6% tax-to-GDP ratio, and persistent insecurity in multiple regions limit the state's capacity to fund and implement transition programmes equitably.  

Labour Demand 

Nigeria's green economy presents a significant but underutilised employment frontier. MSMEs, which employ 84% of the private-sector workforce, will be central to delivering Just Transition outcomes at scale, yet a financing gap of NGN 65.4 trillion constrains their ability to adopt cleaner technologies and expand into green value chains. The six priority sectors identified in the ELMA each carry distinct transition relevance.  

Agriculture and Agro-Processing, the economy's largest employer at 43% of the workforce, stands to gain from climate-smart techniques, drought-resistant crops, solar-powered irrigation, and regenerative farming, that simultaneously protect livelihoods and build resilience against climate shocks.  

ICT and digital innovation are enabling the transition by connecting green entrepreneurs, improving agricultural data systems, and supporting climate monitoring platforms, with Lagos's fast-growing tech ecosystem demonstrating the scale of what is possible.  

Manufacturing faces the dual challenge of decarbonising existing production while seizing opportunities in clean technology supply chains, particularly in pharmaceuticals, food processing, and the production of green building materials.  

Green Construction sits at the intersection of urbanisation and sustainability. As Nigeria's cities expand, embedding energy efficiency, sustainable materials, and circular design into the built environment could generate between 60,000 and 240,000 new jobs by 2030.  

Renewable Energy is the centrepiece of Nigeria's Just Transition. The Energy Transition Plan projects up to 340,000 green jobs by 2030 and over 2 million by 2050, spanning solar installation, mini-grid operations, wind power, and the reskilling of oil and gas workers into clean energy roles.  

Creative Industries, employing over 4.2 million people, contribute to the social dimension of the Just Transition by building the cultural narratives and public awareness that drive community buy-in for sustainable change.  

Transport and Logistics, while not a designated priority sector, underpins Nigeria's entire economic productivity, yet poor road networks, congested ports, and inadequate rail drive up logistics costs, increase post-harvest losses, and stifle manufacturing. The Just Transition introduces demand for EV mechanics, CNG infrastructure specialists, and charging station technicians, with sustainable transport identified as a key green job corridor under the Energy Transition Plan.  

Labour Supply 

A Just Transition is only as equitable as the workforce it prepares. Nigeria's labour supply challenges, 10.5 million out-of-school children and only 169 technical colleges serving 43,000 students nationally, reveal a significant readiness gap. The skills demanded by the green economy, from solar technicians and waste-processing engineers to climate adaptation consultants and sustainable transport planners, are not yet being systematically cultivated. The persistent mismatch between university and TVET curricula and practical market needs further deepens this gap, leaving graduates unemployed while green sectors struggle to find qualified workers. 

Addressing this requires a deliberate pivot: expanding TVET to equip workers with green trade skills, redesigning curricula around climate-relevant competencies, and ensuring that women and youth, the groups most vulnerable to transition-related job losses, are prioritised in reskilling programmes.  

Matching Labour Demand and Supply 

Delivering a just and inclusive transition requires connecting the right workers to the right green opportunities. With 53% of Nigerian youths aged 15–34 unemployed or underemployed in 2023, and job seekers overwhelmingly relying on informal networks, equitable access to emerging green jobs cannot be assumed. Public employment services such as NELEX remain structurally limited in their reach, particularly into the informal economy where transition impacts will be most acutely felt. At the state level, job centre initiatives such as EdoJobs and others like it in Enugu, Ogun and Plateau offering job listings, career guidance and short term training courses, demonstrate how subnational institutions can bridge the gap between job seekers and employers, aligning skills to market needs.  Private platforms like Jobberman have demonstrated impact, 130,000 placements and 280,000 soft-skills training beneficiaries since 2020, but scale and equity gaps persist. Geographic mismatches and credential biases that favour university degrees over practical qualifications further exclude workers most in need of transition pathways.  

Recommendations 

The ELMA's recommendations, read through a Just Transition lens, form a coherent agenda for inclusive green growth. Macroeconomic stabilisation — through exchange rate reform, inflation control, and infrastructure investment in power, transport, and broadband — creates the enabling environment for green investment to flow. Expanding MSME finance, implementing the Start-Up Act, and modernising Special Economic Zones with explicit labour and ESG standards will ensure that the benefits of Nigeria's green economy reach small businesses and their workers. Scaling green vocational programmes, adopting dual training models that embed industry cooperation, and extending microcredit and mentoring to women are essential for building a transition-ready workforce. Finally, modernising public employment services, supporting geographic mobility, and standardising apprenticeships will ensure that no worker is structurally excluded from Nigeria's low-carbon future.  

Why This Report Matters 

Nigeria's labour market challenge is not simply a matter of creating more jobs, it is about creating better and decent jobs, more equitably distributed, and matched to a workforce whose potential has long been constrained by underinvestment, informality, and structural barriers. The ELMA 2025 provides the most detailed and up-to-date evidence base yet assembled for understanding that challenge and for designing the interventions needed to address it. 

As Nigeria continues its transition toward a more diversified, digital, and green economy, this report arrives at a critical moment, one in which the choices made by government, the private sector, and development partners will shape the employment trajectory of an entire generation. 

Read Full Report below 

The Employment and Labour Market Analysis (ELMA) 2025 Nigeria was published by GIZ's Sector Programme Employment and produced by FAKT-Consult Stuttgart. Authors: Olumide Taiwo, Samuel Omomoh, Thorsten Kirschner (coordinator). Editorial team: Christian Cimino, Mathias Janke, Dennis Horch, Mersad Karasalihovic (GIZ), and Lukas Bauereis (FAKT-Consult). Contributors: Kikelomo Collins-Chibeze, Terlumun Amile, Fidelia Okodugha, Sherifat Yunusa and Kira Malin Kreft (GIZ Nigeria)