In the third quarter of 2023, there was a 0.8% increase in Nigeria’s unemployment rate.
The National Bureau of Statistics noted that this was a noteworthy increase, pointing out that the jobless rate increased from 4.2% in Q2 2023 to 5.0% in Q3 2023.
The country’s official statistics custodian, the NBS, revealed this in a study titled “Nigeria Labour Force Survey Q3 2023” that it released on Monday.
“The employment-to-population ratio was 75.6% in Q3 2023 with a decrease of 1.5% compared to a ratio of Q2 2023.
“The combined rate of unemployment and time-related underemployment as a share of the labour force population (LU2) increased to 17.3% in Q3 2023 from 15.5% in Q2 2023.
“About 87.3% of workers were self-employed in Q3 2023.
“The proportion of workers in Wage Employment in Q3 2023 was 12.7%.
“The unemployment rate increased significantly in Q3 2023 at 5.0%. This is an increase of 0.8% from Q2 2023.
“The rate of unemployment among persons with post-secondary education was 7.8% in Q3 2023,” the report partly reads.
It further stated that in Q3 2023, the percentage of youth unemployed between the ages of 15 and 24 was 8.6%, while the percentage of youth working informally was 92.3%.
“The urban unemployment rate was 6.0% in Q3 2023, a slight increase of 0.1% from Q2 2023,” the paper continued.
“Time-related underemployment in Q3 2023 was 12.3%, showing a slight increase of 0.5% from the rate recorded in Q2 2023.
This shows an increase of 1.4% compared to the rate in Q4 2022.“4.1% of the working-age population was in subsistence agriculture in Q3 2023. Informal employment rate in Q3 2023 was 92.3%, while Q2 2023 was 92.7%.
“Percentage of youth Not in Employment, Education or Training was 13.7% in Q3 2023.”
Recall that on Thursday, Nigeria’s inflation rate increased from 28.92 percent in the previous month to 29.90 percent in January 2024.
The 0.98 percent increase indicates that the nation’s inflation rate has not yet decreased.