Nigeria’s unemployment rate jumped four percentage points over a 20-month period to 27.1 percent in the second quarter of this year, from 23.1 percent in the third quarter of 2018, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.
The national statistical agency failed to release the labour figure in 2019, despite calls from different groups, including media houses.
NBS said underemployment over the period rose to 28.6 percent in Q2 2020, from 20.1 percent in Q3 2018.
This comes as the government warned on Thursday that the economy could slide into recent in this quarter unless economic activities pick up substantially. That would be the country’s second recession in four years.
The NBS report was titled ‘Labor Force Statistics: Unemployment and Underemployment Report’.
“For the period under review, Q2 2020, the unemployment rate among young people (15-34 years) was 34.9 percent, up from 29.7 percent, while the rate of underemployment for the same age group rose to 28.2 percent from 25.7 percent in Q3 2018.
“These rates were the highest when compared to other age groupings.”
The NBS said the number of persons in the economically active or working-age population (15 – 64 years of age) increased to 116,871,186 from 115,492,969 in Q3 2018.
It said, “The number of persons in the labour force (i.e. people within ages 15 -64, who are able and willing to work) was estimated to be 80,291,894. This was 11.3 percent less than the number of persons in Q3 2018.
“Of this number, those within the age bracket of 25-34 were highest, with 23,328,460 or 29.1 percent of the labour force,” it said.
It added that the number of people in employment fell by 15.8 percent in the second quarter of this year, to 58,527,276, relative to the third quarter of 2018.
“Of this number, 35,585,274 were full-time employed (i.e. worked 40+ hours per week), while 22,942,003 were underemployed (i.e. working between 20-29 hours per week),” NBS said.
Imo State, in South East Nigeria, reported the highest rate of unemployment with 48.7 percent. It was followed by Akwa-Ibom State and Rivers State, in the South-South oil-rich region, with 45.2 percent and 43.7 percent, respectively, according to the agency.
From the same South East, Anambra recorded the lowest rate of unemployment at 13.1 percent, NBS said.
“For underemployment, the state which recorded the highest rate was Zamfara with 43.7 percent, while Anambra State recorded the lowest underemployment rate, with 17 percent in Q2 2020.
“A total number of 2,736,076 did not do any work in the last seven days preceding the survey due to the lockdown but had secure jobs to return to after the lockdown,” the agency explained.
