29m Nigerians jobless —NBS

THE National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the unemployment rate in the country rose from 13.9 per cent in the 3rd quarter to 14.2 per cent in the 4th quarter of 2016, thus increasing the number of unemployed population in Nigeria to 29 million, from the 27.12 million recorded in third quarter of 2016.

The NBS made this known in the “Unemployment/Under-employment Report for 4th Quarter of 2016’’ made available on the bureau’s website on Tuesday in Abuja.

The report said that the period under review showed that population unemployed was 27.12 million in 3rd quarter, compared to 28.58 million persons in the 4th quarter.

It said that this showed an increase in the number of unemployed labour force by 351,015 persons.

According to the bureau, the percentage increase in both the 2nd and 1st quarter of 2016 were slightly lower at 13.4 per cent and 12.1 per cent, respectively.

It showed that 26.06 million persons were unemployed in 2nd quarter, while 24.5 million were unemployed in the 1st quarter in the year under review.

The report, however, showed that the underemployed in the labour force in 2016 in the 3rd quarter was 15.9 million persons or 19.7 per cent, while the 4th quarter was 17.03 million or 21.0 per cent.

The report said that it therefore showed an increase of 1.3 percentage points between the 3rd and the 4th quarters of 2016, a steady rise in the rate since 3rd quarter of the year.

The bureau said that keeping with the recent trend in the labour market, unemployment and underemployment continued to be highest for persons aged between ages of 15 to 34.

According to the bureau, the age bracket represents the youth population in the country.

It said that a breakdown into age groups showed that unemployment rate was highest for those within the ages of 15 to 24, while the underemployment rate for the same age group increased to 36.5 per cent in 4th quarter of 2016.

In addition, the bureau stated that unemployment and underemployment were higher for women than men in the 4th quarter of 2016.

It said that during the 4th quarter, 16.3 per cent of women in the labour force were those between 15 and 65 — willing, able and actively working or searching for work were unemployed.

According to the report, 24.2 per cent of women in the labour force were underemployed in the quarter under review.

The bureau said on the other hand, 12.3 per cent of males were unemployed in 4th quarter of 2016, while 17.9 per cent of males in the labour force were underemployed during the same period.

According to the NBS report, “With an economically active or working age population of 108.59 million and labour force population of 81.15 million, it means 27.44 million persons within the economically active or working age population decided not to work for one reason or the other in Q4 2016, hence, were not part of the labour force and cannot be considered unemployed,” the report noted.

Significantly, number of those working but doing menial jobs not commensurate with their qualifications or those not engaged in fulltime work and merely working for few hours increased by 1,109,551 or 7.0 per cent, resulting in an increase in the underemployment rate from19.7 per cent (15.9 million persons) in Q3 2016 to 21.0 per cent (17.03 million persons) in Q4 2016.

Those aged between 15-34 years, which represents the youth population, have the highest rate of unemployment and underemployment.

“Consequently, 61.6 per cent of Nigerians in the labour force, aged 15 – 24 were either unemployed or underemployed in Q4, 2016, compared to 59.9 per cent in Q3, 58.3 per cent in Q2; 56.1 per cent in Q1 and 53.5 per cent in Q4 2015. “Of persons aged between the ages of 25 and 34, 37.5 per cent of that group were either unemployed or underemployed in Q4, 2016compared to 35.9 per cent in Q3, 35.1 per cent in Q2, 32.8 per cent in Q1, and 31.3 per cent in Q4 2015.

“Thus, out of a total youth labour force population of 40.74 million (representing 50.2 per cent of total 81.15 million labour force in Nigeria), a total of 19.3million of them were either unemployed or underemployed in Q4 2016. (Important to note that there is a technical distinction between not working and unemployed.”

Although over 200 million people were estimated to be unemployed in the world in 2016, the projections are for a further increase in global unemployment by more than three million people over the next two years.

NBS explained that the highest unemployment rate in the world is recorded in Djibouti (54 per cent), Congo (46.1 per cent), Bosnia and Herzegovinian (40.1 per cent), Afghanistan (40 per cent) and Kenya (40 per cent) while the lowest are found in Qatar (0.2 per cent), Cambodia (0.5 per cent), Belarus (1 per cent), Benin (1.0 per cent), Thailand (1.2 per cent), Madagascar (1.2 per cent) Laos (1.4 per cent) and Guinea (1.7 per cent).