Abstract—This study identified the work skills required by technical college graduates in blocklaying and concreting works trade as a means to mitigate the current graduate unemployment in South-South Nigeria using descriptive survey research design. Two research questions guided the study. The study sample consisted of 258 blocklaying and concreting work graduates. A 92 competency item questionnaire developed from literature reviewed was used for data collection. Three experts face validated the instrument. Cronbach Alpha was used to test the reliability of the instrument which yielded a reliability coefficient of .83. Data collected were analyzed using weighted mean and improvement need index. The findings revealed that blocklaying and concreting works graduates needed training in 75 out of the 85 competency items identified in this study; and that the technical college graduates could not perform the competency items to the level needed in blocklaying and concreting works. It was recommended that government should provide adequate training facilities at the technical colleges in order to address work skills the graduates were deficient in; the identified skills where graduates of technical colleges performed poorly should be packaged and used for remedial training programme to remedy the competencies in which blocklaying and concreting works graduates need improvement since they exhibited low level of job performance.

Index Terms—work skills, job performance, graduates, blocklaying and concreting, employment

Cite: Jane Itohan Oviawe and Raymond Uwameiye, "Work Skills Needs and Job Performance of Graduates of Blocklaying and Concreting Works Trade of Technical Colleges for Employment in South-South Niger," Journal of Industrial and Intelligent Information, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 31-37, December 2018. doi: 10.18178/jiii.6.2.31-37