August 24, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said on Thursday.
The nation’s unemployment rate which is an outcome of the labour force survey (LFS), conducted in Nigeria, is coming two years after the last official data of 33.3 percent for the fourth quarter of 2020 which was released in March 2021.
The unemployment rate in the country had stood at 33.3 percent in the last report of the NBS released as of the fourth quarter of 2020
The 2020 figures and the current figure were calculated using different methodologies, the NBS clarified.
The last survey was conducted using the 13th ICLS, which was birthed and adopted in 1982 at the International Conference of Labour Statisticians.
The federal government agency had earlier announced that it would use a new methodology that aggregates the number of employed and unemployed persons in the country to get accurate data on the labour force.
“Following guidelines adopted during the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in Geneva in 2013, the aim of this re-evaluation was two-pronged. On one hand was to ensure that the methodology was in line with international best practices and locally relevant, and on the other hand, to ensure that a production process was robust enough to produce estimates on a sustainable basis (avoiding periodic gaps), and also, produce more labour market indicators and analysis that will inform government about the employment and job situation in Nigeria”, the NBS said earlier.
But the launch of the new methodology in Abuja on Thursday, brings Nigeria’s Labour Survey in tandem with international standards.
The NBS noted that the survey was conducted in collaboration with the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation and has been adopted by 26 countries in Africa.
Commenting on the new unemployment report in his keynote speech, Statistician-General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, said the drop is basically due to a new methodology adopted by the NBS in conducting the survey and not necessarily government performance.
Adeniran however emphasised that there is no real basis to compare the unemployment data released in 2021 with the new figure.
“NBS has not said that unemployment rate in Nigeria has reduced from the 33.3% to whatever the figure it is now, therefore government should go to sleep. No, that is not what we have said.
“The figures today are not based on any performance of any sort, but strictly, and I repeat, strictly on the change in methodology… this is based on the new ILO standard, which Nigeria is part and parcel of, as a country.
“As a matter of fact, the current Chair of the ILO Governing Board is Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, H.E, Ambassador Abiodun Richards Adelaja, so this we cannot continue to be at odds with the ILO standard… we have adopted the ILO standard methodology, which I believe, we have shown enough justification for, and as a result, the figures have changed, and both the new and old are not comparable”, he said.
Adeniran also noted that the NLFS is a survey for measuring whether people are engaged or not, the type of that engagement, and the nature of it, be it for pay, profit, own consumption or for free.
“This is why the concept of decent work has become much more pronounced in recent times, as the clamour for better working conditions increase, and rightly so. The measure of the quality of a person’s life is not done through the NLFS, there are other surveys that are designed for that purpose, such as the Nigeria Living Standard Survey (NLSS), Food and Nutrition Survey, or other household Consumption and Expenditure surveys which deal with welfare and living conditions.
“Waged employment, which is very often what people confuse for employment, disregarding self-employment, is only 11.8%, meaning that most Nigerians are self-employed, do we then classify the self-employed as unemployed? This cannot be so, hence attention should shift to the quality of work people do, as that appears to be the real issue”, he said.
Reeling out the real outcomes of the survey, Adeniran explained that “the findings reveal that about three quarters of Nigerians in the working age population, 73.6% in Q4 2022 and 76.7% in Q1 2023, were engaged in some form of work for pay or profit during quarters under review”.
He noted that this workforce is composed of individuals engaged in various types of work, including formal and informal employment. A further 4.96% were engaged in subsistence agriculture in the fourth quarter of 2022, while 3.56% of the working age population were engaged in subsistence agriculture in the first quarter of 2023.
He noted that this workforce is composed of individuals engaged in various types of work, including formal and informal employment. A further 4.96% were engaged in subsistence agriculture in the fourth quarter of 2022, while 3.56% of the working age population were engaged in subsistence agriculture in the first quarter of 2023.
The results also indicates a scarcity of Wage-employment, as the share of those employed in Wage-employment during the reference quarters was 13.4 percent in Q4 2022 and 11.8 percent in Q1 2023.
This, he said means that a lot more Nigerians operate their own businesses or engage in agriculture and that this figure was 73.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022, and 75.4% in the first quarter of 2023. The high share of self-employed persons amongst the employed shows that most Nigerians struggle to find wage employment, which is most desirable by Nigerians.
Furthermore, the share of the working age population in Nigeria that are not working was 21.4% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 19.8% in the first quarter of 2023.
According to him, not working is a combination of those within the working age population who are unemployed and not in labour force, such as students, housewives and those not available and searching for work, hence the not working rate should not be taken as the unemployment rate.
“Using the new ILO definition, the survey shows that the unemployment rate for the fourth quarter of 2022 stood at 5.3% and 4.1% for the first quarter of 2023.
“This figure aligns perfectly with neighbouring countries around Nigeria. Ghana (3.9%), Niger (0.5%), Chad (1.4%), Cameroon (4.0), Togo (4.1%), Benin Republic (1.7%) amongst others.
“Unemployment amongst those with post-secondary education was highest, at 9.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022. This figure is almost double the headline unemployment rate for that quarter and highlights the challenging problem of graduate unemployment, were individuals, despite their education, struggle to secure employment”, he added.
Underemployment is also a more significant issue for Nigerians, whereby persons engaged in one activity or the other yet indicate interest and availability to take on more work, due to inadequacy of the jobs they are engaged in at the time.
Findings from the survey estimate the underemployment rate to be 13.7% in the fourth quarter of 2022, and 21.2% in the first quarter of 2023.
“This indicates that, though persons are engaged, the engagement is not sufficient for them, and they would like to work additional hours of work”, he stated.
The survey also collects information on informality of employment. Nigeria has a large informal sector, however, the number of persons engaged in informal employment is largely blurred.
“Using the ILO definition, the survey estimates that 93.5% of employed person were engaged informally in the fourth quarter of 2022, while 92.6% of employed persons in the first quarter of 2023 were also engaged informally.
For him, this is very interesting and useful information for government, particularly at this time when discussions are ongoing on palliative measures to be taken following the removal of petrol subsidies.
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