Unemployment rate rises to 14.2%

The unemployment rate in the country further worsened in last quarter of 2016 as the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that 61.6 per cent of the youths in the country who were in the labour force were without jobs.

According to the data out of the 28.58 million Nigerians in the labour force that were either unemployed or under employed, 19.3 million of them are youths aged between 15 and 24.

For a country that has youths taking up more than 50 per cent of its workforce, the rate of unemployment was highest amongst the youths.

The number of unemployed Nigerians according to the NBS rose from 27.12 million in the third quarter of 2016 to 28.58 million by the end of December 2016.

Underemployment rate – those who are merely working but whose pay is not commensurate with their qualifications or the work they do, rose from19.7 per cent in Q3 2016 to 21 per cent in Q4 2016.

The NBS said 37.5 per cent of persons aged between the ages of 25 and 34 were either unemployed or underemployed in Q4, 2016 compared 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 40.74million, representing 50.2 per cent of total labour force in Nigeria of 81.15 million, a total of 19.3million of them were either unemployed or underemployed in Q4 2016.

The number of underemployed in the labour force, 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 1.1 million or 7 per cent.

This is an increase of 1.3 percentage points between quarters 3 and 4 of 2016, and shows a steady rise in the rate since Q3 of 2015.

During the reference period, the number of unemployed in the labour force, increased by 351,015persons, resulting in an increase in the national unemployment rate to 14.2 per cent in Q4 2016, slightly up from 13.9 per cent in Q3, 13.3 per cent in Q2, 12.1 per cent in Q1 2016,and 10.4 per cent in Q4 2015.

Accordingly, there were a total of 28.58million persons in the Nigerian labour force in Q4 2016, that were either unemployed or underemployed compared to  27.12million in Q3, 26.06million in Q2 and24.5 million in Q1 2016.

As was the case in previous quarters, unemployment and underemployment were higher for women than men in Q4 2016.

During the quarter, 16.3 per cent of women in the labour force (those between 15 – 65 willing, able and actively working or searching for work) were unemployed in Q4 2016, and a further 24.2 per cent of women in the labour force were underemployed.

On the other hand, 12.3% of males were unemployed in Q4 2016, while a further 17.9 per cent of males in the labour force were underemployed during the same period.

Underemployment continued to be predominant in rural areas.

25.8 per cent of rural residents were underemployed compared to 10.5 per cent urban of residents.

Given that the nature of rural jobs are largely menial and unskilled, such as in agriculture and the likes, unemployment is more of a concern in urban areas where more skilled labour is required.

The unemployment rate in the urban areas was 18.4 per cent compared to 12.3 per cent in the rural areas, as the preference is more for formal white-collar jobs, which are located mostly in urban centres.