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#‎Unemployment_in_Nigeria‬
NBS: labour force hits 78.4m in Q1
by Toba Agboola, May 27, 2016 at 12:00 am in Labour FacebookTwitterSMSWhatsApp
The population of the labour force(those in the working age who are actively looking for job) rose to 78.4 million between January and March according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The NBS said the figure was 76.9 million for the same period last year, representing an increase of 1.99 per cent.
This is contained in a report titled: “Unemployment/Under-employment Watch Q1 2016,” released by the NBS.
Based on the statistics, it is likely Nigeria has been unable to create the 1.5 million jobs required between the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016 to keep the unemployment rate constant at 10.4 per cent.
Additional 15 million economically active persons between 15 and 64 entered the labour force between last January 1 and March 31.
According to the NBS, the new entrants into the labour market also consisted of newly qualified graduates, fresh entrants into the economically active population (who became 15 in Q1 2016) and those who chose not to work for whatever reasons in earlier periods, among others.
The report added that within the same period, the number of those in fulltime employment decreased by 528,148 persons or 0.97 per cent.
It explained that this category consists of people who lost their jobs and were either forced or for various reasons chose to move from full time employment to underemployment.
The NBS noted that the drop in full time employment between Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 was predominantly those between the ages 15 and 24 years, followed by ages 55-64 years, ages 45-54 years, and ages 35-44 years.
Against the backdrop, the report noted that with an economically active or working age population of 106 million and with a labour force population of 78.4million in the first quarter of 2016, the development means that 27.5 million persons within the economically active or working age population decided not to work for various reasons in the first quarter of 2016. Consequently, they are not part of the labour force and cannot be technically considered unemployed or underemployed, even though they were not working.
The report buttressed this by stating that: “You have to be willing to work and actively seeking work before you can be considered unemployed.”