Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has shown that Nigeria's unemployment rate has risen to 27.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020 from 23.1 percent recorded in Q3 2018. The latest data by NBS on Friday indicates that about 21,764,614 (21.7) Nigerians remain unemployed. Nigeria's unemployment and underemployment rate (28.6%) combined is 55.7%. This shows the total number of Nigerians who are unemployed or underemployed as of 2020 Q2.
Nigeria's unemployment rate was 23.1% in Q3 2018, confirming that it increased by 4% points between then and the second quarter of 2020.
"For the period under review, Q2 2020, the unemployment rate among young people (15-34 years) was 34.9 per cent, up from 29.7 per cent, while the rate of underemployment for the same age group rose to 28.2 per cent from 25.7 percent in Q3 2018.
"These rates were the highest when compared to other age groupings," NBS said.
"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. This was 11.3 per cent 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.
Crucial key points to take away from the NBS report is:
Graduates and postgraduates combined made up about 2.9 million of the total Nigerians that are unemployed.
In the data, out of the 35.5 million Nigerians that are fully employed, 28.8 million of them never attended school (6.29 million) or did not have a tertiary education (22.5).
Nigerian youths remain the hardest hit by unemployment with over 13.9 million people aged between 15 and 34 years unemployed.
Women also continue to bear the brunch of a bad economy with about 12.2 million out of jobs from the 27 million currently unemployed.
