The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has finally released the much anticipated unemployment report in the country, which puts number of unemployed Nigerians at 20,927,648.
Year on year, the unemployment rate increased from 18.8% during the third quarter of 2017, to 23.1% in the same period this year.
A closer examination of the report shows that this is the highest unemployment rate in Nigeria since Q3 2014 when the number of unemployed Nigerians was 7.27 million.
Since 2014, the unemployment rate in the country has significantly increased from 9.7% to 23.1%.
Note that this is first of such reports by the NBS in over a year, a situation that unavoidably stirred controversy in the country even as many people suggested that the Government was trying to doctor the figures.
Here are the key extracts from the report as obtained from the NBS
- The total number of completely unemployed Nigerians increased from 17.6 million in Q4 2017 to 20.9 million in Q3 2018.
- Out of the 20.9 million unemployed persons as at Q3 2018, 11.1 million did some form of work but for too few hours a week (under 20 hours) while 9.7 million people did absolutely nothing.
- Out of the 9.7 million unemployed Nigerians who did absolutely nothing as at Q3 2018, 8.77 million were unable to work because they were first time job seekers. On the other hand, 9.9 million of the 9.7 million that were unemployed and doing nothing at all reported they were unemployed and did nothing at all because they were previously employed but lost their jobs at some point in the past which is why they were unemployed.
- Out of the 9.7 million that were unemployed and did nothing at all, 35.0% or 3.4 million have been unemployed and did nothing at all for less than a year, 17.2% or 1.6 million for a year, 15.7% or 1.5 million had been unemployed and did nothing for 2 years, and the remaining 32.1% or 3.1 million unemployed persons had been unemployed doing nothing for 3 and above years.
- The economically active or working age population (15 – 64 years of age) increased from 111.1 million in Q3, 2017 to 115.5million in Q3, 2018.
- The number of persons in the labour force also increased from 75.94 million in Q3 2015 to 80.66 million in Q3 2016 to 85.1 million in Q3,2017 to 90.5million in Q3, 2018.
- The total number of people in employment (i.e with jobs) increased from 68.4 million in Q3 2015, to 68.72 million in Q3 2016, to 69.09 million in Q3 2017 and 69.54 million in Q3 2018.
An unfortunate development
It is obvious that this is an unfortunate situation for Nigeria. A sharp increase in unemployment rate from 18.8% in 2017 to 23.1% a year later means only one thin— more Nigerians are not working.
This, therefore, begs the question as to where all the jobs that have supposedly been created by the Government are.
To read the full unemployment report, download it here.
