Lack of soft skills amongst university graduates and job seekers have been identified as being responsible for the bloating unemployment in the country.

This assertion was made by Management experts during a phone-in programme organised by Silverbird Communications in Port Harcourt last  weekend.

A management expert and lecturer in the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Ernest Lale, emphasised that soft skills are essential for graduates to get employment and maintain their jobs.

According to him, soft skills include abilities that help employees interface in the workplace, aside theoretical knowledge acquired in schools.

Prof. Lale decried that many Nigerian universities do not teach their students soft skills hence the high unemployment and underemployment in the various sectors of the economy.

The university don opined that while hard skills account for the ability of a person to get a job, soft skills account for 20 per cent of what employers need for a job seeker to thrive in a workplace.

The same view was expressed by a Soft Skills Specialist and Consultant, Mrs Grace Alubari, who lamented that many employees lose their jobs because of poor attitude to work.

Mrs Alubari noted that soft skills help workers to be productive at work as it provides elixir for smooth relations between workers adding, “soft skills is all about good work ethics and good communication skills”.

The Soft Skill expert further argued that lack of soft skills create tension at work and stiffles production, “smart companies are training their workers on soft skills by taking into consideration their emotional needs”.