The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to review some of its policies which, it said, tended to worsen the unemployment and inflationary rates in the country.
Mr Abdulwahed Omar, NLC president, made the call at the 2012 May Day rally in Abuja.
Omar said that organised labour would continue to contest policies that impacted negatively on the citizens.
The labour leader noted that joblessness had become a permanent feature of the national economy in spite of the report of over seven per cent growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in recent time.
He said apart from unemployment, creeping inflationary pressure had continued to erode workers’ real earnings in the country.
“The government continues to report annual rates of growth of the Gross Domestic Product in excess of seven per cent even while unemployment continues to swell.
“Just last month, we were told that we were now the third fastest growing economy in the world, after Mongolia and China, yet the ranks of the unemployed continues to grow.
“Apart from unemployment, a creeping inflationary pressure continues to erode the real earnings of workers,’’ he said.
Omar said the increase in the price of petrol in January had driven up aggregate price level and impacted negatively on workers earnings, including the national minimum wage.
“Comrades, you will agree with me there is an urgent need to re-think the policies which are producing these undesirable outcomes,’’ he said.
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