Nigeria’s Real Jobless Rate Now 40%, NBS Says
By Bashir Olanrewaju
Nigeria’s unemployment rate jumped to 33.3 percent in the fourth quarter, in effect leaving one in three citizens without a means of livelihood, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics.
It’s a sharp increase from the 27.1 percent unemployment rate recorded in the second quarter of 2020, the bureau said on Monday in a statement on its website.
When combined with an underemployment rate of 22.8 percent in the same period, it leaves Nigeria with an effective jobless rate of 40 percent for the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the report.
More than half of young people, 53.4 percent, aged 15 to 24 had no work to do, compared with 37.2 percent of people between 25 and 34 years that had noticed work within the period. For women, 35.2 percent were unemployed, while 31.8 percent of men had no job.
Nigeria is still struggling to exit its second recession in four years as the coronavirus pandemic hammered its economy, causing a plunge in demand for its main export, oil. A prolonged lockdown to curb the spread of the virus also hurt productivity.