By Adedapo Adesanya
The rate of unemployment among Nigerians jumped 33.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
In the Labour Force Statistics: Unemployment and Underemployment Report released on Monday, the NBS said this represents an increase from 27.1 per cent recorded in the second quarter of the year under review.
According to the calculations done by Business Post, in the period under consideration, a total of 23,187,389 persons were willing to work but could not get jobs.
The report revealed that the total number of people in employment (people with jobs) during the reference period was 46,488,079. Out of which 30,572,440 were full-time employed (worked 40+ hours per week), while 15,915,639 were under-employed (working between 20-29 hours per week). These figures indicated a drop of 20.6 per cent compared with the people in employment in Q2, 2020.
The report further showed that the number of persons in the economically active or working-age population (15 – 64 years of age) during the reference period of the survey were 122,049,400, 4.3 per cent higher than 116,871,186 in the corresponding quarter.
The stats agency explained that the number of persons in the labour force, that is people between the ages of 15 – 64, who are able and willing to work, were estimated to be 69,675,468. This was 13.2 per cent less than the number of persons in the second quarter.
Of this number, those within the age bracket of 25-34 were highest, with 20,091,695 or 28.8 per cent of the labour force.
For the period under review, the unemployment rate among young people (15 – 34years) was 42.5 per cent up from 34.9 per cent.
The unemployment rate among rural dwellers went up to 34.5 per cent from 28.2 per cent in Q2 2020, while urban dwellers reported a rate of 31.3 per cent, higher than 26.4 per cent in the comparative period.
There was a semblance of good news in the case of underemployment among rural and urban dwellers. For rural dwellers, it declined to 26.9 per cent from 31.5 per cent, while for urban dwellers, it decreased to 16.2 per cent from 23.2 per cent in Q2 2020.
Also, the rate of underemployment among young people (15- 34years) declined to 21.0 per cent from 28.2 per cent in the previous quoted period.
By states, Imo State reported the highest rate of unemployment with 56.6 per cent of people without any job, this was followed by Adamawa and Cross River States with 54.9 per cent and 53.7 per cent respectively.
The lowest rate of unemployment was recorded in Osun State with 11.7 per cent.
Per underemployment, the state which recorded the highest rate was Benue State with 43.5 per cent while Lagos State recorded the lowest underemployment rate with 4.5 per cent in Q4 2020.
