Career Opportunities
Commerce SSS2 First Term
WEEK 1
Career Opportunities
Performance Objectives
The student should be able to:
1. Enumerate the different types of occupation.
2. Identify various career opportunities open to them.
3. List the requirements for the various types of careers.
Content
Meaning of Career
A career could be described as a chosen profession or job which someone does for a long period of their life and in which they hope to gain the achievement.
Meaning of Career Opportunities
This refers to the various job opportunities that are available to people in the job market. As a commercial student, there are many different categories of careers open to such students. Such opportunities may be available in the public and private sectors.
Generally, we can easily classify employment opportunities into two broad categories which were self-employment and paid employment opportunities.
Types of occupation
There are only three branches of production, namely: Industry, commerce and services. There are well over 30,000 different occupations all of which are subsumed under those three principal divisions.
Extractive Industry
This includes all those occupations engaged in obtaining materials from air, land or sea. In other words, they are the industries by means of which raw materials are obtained for the purpose of being worked upon by the manufacturing and construction industries.
Major among these primary industries are:
I. Agriculture
II. Mining
III. Fishing
IV. Forestry
As the extractive industry is primarily concerned with the process of extracting natural resources from the soil or sea, the professions that thus develop from its branches include:
i. Agriculture: This includes occupations such as cattle rearing, sheep rearing dairy farming, lumbering, food and cash crops farming. Agriculture which provides employment for more than three-quarters of Nigeria's population is the mainstay of Nigerians' livelihood.
ii. Mining: The mining industry consists of various plants that are engaged in the exploitation of all types of minerals such as coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural gas and tar-sands. These minerals which serve as raw materials in their original form are later refined by the manufacturing industries for various uses. Coal and petroleum are part of the major natural resources of Nigeria that are exported for money. With the recent emphasis on industrial development, efforts are now being geared towards the utilization of these minerals as raw materials in our local industries.
iii. Fishing: The fishing industry is of the natural living wealth of the country. Except for the self-employed fishermen who use traditional nets one and fish traps and a few men employed by the deep-sea trawler fishing industries, very few people engage in full-time fishing. Numerous people, however, supplement their incomes with fishing on part-time. The fishing industry employs specialists in chemistry, biology, economics and engineering, with sea experience, on its research ships.
iv. Forestry: Forestry is mainly concerned with the production of timber in its raw form from the bush for manufacturing purposes. Timber is one of Nigeria's most famous export commodities, but the industry does not provide a great deal of employment. Large sawmills and Plywood factories usually recruit most of their labourers from their locality. Sawmills on the other hand, tend to be run by members of the same extended family. That is why forestry is described as almost a family group industry. Each state government has its own forestry services which are responsible for the planning of timber development and re-afforestation programmes.
Manufacturing and Construction Industries
These include all those occupations engaged in changing the forms of the raw materials produced by extractive industries. Manufacturing industries are set up to change the raw forms of materials produced by extractive industries through some processes of manufacturing thereby increasing their value and utility. Some of the principal manufacturing industries include plastics, mechanical engineering, electrical appliances and textile.
i. Mechanical engineering: This relates to industries concerned with the manufacturing of all types of types of machinery including office equipment, industrial engines, machine tools and earth-moving equipment. This group of industries is in the process of making a breakthrough in some areas like the manufacture of food processing tools.
ii. Building industry: The appearance of Nigerian cities and towns is changing all the time. There are always new structures like roads, school buildings, houses, factories, hospitals, electrical installations, hotels and churches in several cities of the country. At the same time, existing roads are being improved upon while new bridges are constructed. Behind this development is a complex of building contractors, architects, surveyors, bricklayers, plumbers, decorators and a host of others. These people are employed by the Public Works Departments, large construction companies, small firms and corporations, while many are self-employed.
iii. Roadmaking: These are industries which construct roads and bridges. Workers in such industries include civil engineers, water engineers, plumbers and a host of road construction professionals.
iv. Hardware: These are primarily concerned with the making of metal, items of military equipment, physical components such as electronic and electrical devices, down to apparatuses such as computers. All these materials are made out of the raw products of the extractive industries.
v. Textile: This industry functions to provide various types of clothing for man. The four main branches of the textile industry are cotton, woollen, linen and silk industries. The cotton-textile industry is the most widespread and the first to be developed by a man many centuries ago because of:
a. Its simple processes
b The comparatively low initial capital
c. The extensive demand or market for cotton cloth.
The cotton-textile sector is the most developed aspect of textile in Nigeria due to the availability of raw material (cotton).
Commercial Industries
We have so far learnt about how extractive industries provide us with the raw material and the manufacturing industries the finished products. It is obviously essential however, that those finished products should be distributed to the people who need them before we can accomplish the goals of production. These services of distribution are essentially carried out by the commercial industries. The importance of commerce in production is quite comprehensive and far-reaching. In the first place, it is the commercial occupation that links up with the producer of the raw material (extractive); it, in turn, links up the various processes of manufacture and finally distributes the finished product to the consumers.
Direct and Indirect Services
The manufacturing and construction industries deal with the changing of the form of the commodity and commercial industries undertake the movement of commodities from one place to another. Direct and Indirect services are primarily concerned with facilitating or making possible the work of those engaged in the other industries.
Those involved in the rendering of such services include doctors, lawyers, teachers civil servants, policemen, soldiers and sailors. All of these trades or professions have through their direct contributions, made Industry and Commerce more efficient by providing law and order protection, education, amusement, medical treatment etc to those engaged in material production. The services of doctors, teachers and entertainers are direct since they are rendered directly to the individual. On the other hand, the services of the police and the army, etc, are indirect since such services cannot be said to have been rendered to a person in particular. They are rendered to the society and the individual benefits from it. For example, the protection of life and property which the police and the military render.
Indirect (social) services are usually paid for by the government (Federal, State or Local) from the taxes and rates paid by the citizens.
Career Opportunities
Career opportunities in commerce include the following:
1. Insurance industry: Brokers, actuaries, underwriters, agents etc.
2. Banking/financial industry: Bookkeepers, account clerks, accountants, auditors, financial managers etc
3. Trading: Retailers, wholesalers, advertising agents, salesmen, sales representatives, managers, advertising agencies, purchasing agents etc
4. Transport industry: Transport agencies, transport officers, transport managers etc.
5. Teaching: Teachers in secondary schools, lecturers in polytechnics and universities, bursars, registrars, etc.
6. Warehousing
7. Advertising
8. Personal selling
9. Purchasing
10. Warehousing
11. Communication
Requirements for Different Careers
Some factors that make an individual have either strong or weak points in relation to a career include the following:
1. Experience: Some jobs require a lengthy period of experience. In such case an inexperienced person becomes unsuitable.
2. Education: Some career opportunities require a relatively high level of education.
3. Finance: This becomes important in the case of self-employment.
4. Natural talent: Some occupations require a lot of aptitude or inborn skills.
5. People-orientation: Some jobs require good human relations
6. Fortitude: Some jobs are very challenging and rigorous-often in order to meet deadlines.
7. Initiative: Some jobs require a lot of initiative and foresight as in the case of self-employment capacity to venture and undertake risks.