Characteristics and Employment Generation of Small-Scale Industries in Western Nigeria

With meagre capital investment but with, supposedly, higher labour productivity than in agriculture, small-scale industries can be an important source of employment as well as a healthy contributor to industrial production in a developing country like Nigeria. A study of the Pakistan-Indian situation has shown that normally the highest employment per unit of capital is found in very small firms (of 20 or less workers). Such firms sometimes have the distinct short-term advantage of both lower capital-labour and capital-output ratios than larger establishments [20]. In fact, if the small-scale industrial sector is encouraged within a favourable economic environment, it can play an important role in economic development at least in the transitional state.