Entrepreneurship Skills for Garment Making Needed by Youths in Ahoada East Local Government Area of Rivers State

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to evolve entrepreneurial skills for garment making needed by youths in Ahoada East Local Government Area (LGA) of Rivers State. Specifically, the study identified communication skills, personal skills, management skills and marketing skills needed for garment making by youths. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The area of the study is Ahoada East LGA of Rivers state, Nigeria. The population and sample of the study comprised 52 garment making firm owners from Ahoada East LGA. Questionnaire was used for data collection frequencies and percentages were used to analyze data. The major findings including the following groups of entrepreneurship skills: 12 communication skills, including, decode messages from clients (81.25%), use mobile phone to pass information (79.2%), keep suggestion box (77.1%) among others; 10 personal traits (non-technical skills) including, negotiate with customers (83.3%), manage personal strengths and weaknesses (81.25%, smile and maintain sense of humor with my customers (79.2%) and others; 10 management skills, including, calculate profit and loss (81.25%), mobilize resources to invest into the business (79.2%), manage every component of garment making business (77.1%), and others; 12 marketing skills which include, fix prices/cost of items (85.4%), keep records (81.25%), determine availability of raw materials for garment making (79.2%), and so on. Based on the findings, five recommendations were made for improving entrepreneurship skills of the youths in garment making. These include: parents and the government should encourage the youths with financial support for them to go into agrment-making enterprise and government should provide loan facilities for the youths who have completed their training so that they can start after their training.