Nigeria’s unemployment rate has gone up by 27 percent in the second quarter of 2020, from 23.1 percent it reported in Q3 2018.
The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, disclosed this in its ‘Labor Force Statistics: Unemployment and Underemployment Report’ released on Friday, August 14, 2020.
“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,” the NBS report said. “These rates were the highest when compared to other age groupings.”
According to the NBS, the number of persons in the economically active age (15 – 64 years), jumped from 115,492,969 in Q3 2018 to 116,871,186 in Q2 2020.
“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,” it said.
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 added.
A further peep into the latest NBS unemployment data indicated that the number of employed people in Q2 2020 slumped by 15.8 percent to 58,527,276 when placed side by side with that of Q3 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),” the report revealed.
At 48.7 percent, Imo State has the highest unemployment rate in the country and is trailed by Akwa-Ibom State (45.2 percent) and Rivers State (43.7 percent).
Anambra State, however, has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation – 17 percent.
“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,” the agency said.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NBS said: “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.”
Source: ChannelsTv
