Oil-rich Akwa Ibom State occupies second position in the country by soaring to an all-time high 36.58 per cent unemployment rate for the Q1-3 of this year, National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has reported.
In the report released by NBS last Friday, the unemployment rate in the country had jumped to 40 per cent in third quarter of this year compared to 35.2 per cent in the last quarter of last year.
It appeared Akwa Ibom government did not furnish NBS with its current employment statistics otherwise the rate would have plunged lower than what is published.
Unconfirmed reports from Department of Establishment indicate that the state government is secretly issuing employment letters to people into the state civil service, StraightNews has learnt.
However, NBS reported that oil-rich Rivers State is number one with 41.82 per cent, the highest rate of unemployment in the Q3 followed by Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa has30.36 per cent; while Imo came fourth with 29.47 per cent rate.
Katsina and Jigawa in the North West; as well as Gombe and Yobe in the North East, recorded the highest rate of under-employment rates at 46.19 per cent, 43.01 per cent, 38.38 per cent and respectively.
At the national level, a breakdown of the data showed that unemployment rate stood at 18.8 per cent in Q3 2017, from 14.2 per cent, making it the 12th consecutive increase since Q4 2014.
The number of unemployed Nigerians rose to 15.99mn, from 11.55mn in Q4 2016up; while underemployment rate crawled to 21.2 per cent, from 21.0 per cent.
Unemployment, according to Dr. Yemi Kale, Statistician-General of the Federation and chief executive of NBS, does not translate to job losses, but a “combination of mostly new entrants who didn’t find jobs upon entering labour force and others that lost jobs.”
The country’s economically active or working age population (15-64 age bracket), the report said, rose to 111.1m in Q3, from 110.3m in the preceding quarter, just as the labour force population climbed from 83.94m in Q2 2017, to 85.09m.
The aggregate number of people in full-time (at least 40 hours a week), the report said, fell from 52.7m in Q2, to 51.1m in Q3, which it said may be due to people choosing to work fewer hours hence becoming underemployed or people like intending students or new mothers choosing to leave full time employment entirely or temporarily.
Also, the number of unemployed or under-employed people within the labour force climbed from 13.6 per cent to 17.7m and 15.9m to 18.0m in Q2 and Q3 2017 respectively.
In Q3 2017, the report said 21.2 per cent of women within the labour force and willing, able and actively seeking work were unemployed, up from 16.5 per cent of men within the period.
In the urban centres, unemployment rate rose from 16.4 per cent to 23.4 per cent, just as under-employment expectedly grew at a faster rate than in rural areas of the country.
“Under-employment is predominant in the rural areas (26.9 per cent or rural residence within the labour force in Q3 2017), are under-employed (working for less than 20 hours a week), compared to 9% of urban residents within the period.”
A further breakdown showed that unemployment rate among young people (aged 15 to 24 years) stood at 33.1 per cent, while under-employment rate rose to 22.2 per cent from 22.3 per cent; and 20.2 per cent for those within the 25 to 34 age bracket; just as it declined from 35.1 per cent in Q2, to 34.2 per cent.
This also translated to 67.3 per cent of young people aged 15-24 years either being under-employed, or unemployed, up from 64.6 per cent in previous quarter; while that for the 25-34 year age group stood at 42.5 per cent up from 39.6 per cent.
The combined youth unemployment and under-employment rate (15-35) therefore came to 52.65 per cent or 22.64m, broken down into 10.96m unemployed and another 11.68m of under-employed youths, up from 47.41 per cent in 2016 Q4.
“Unemployment tends to be higher for people within the labour force that have post-secondary school qualifications (31.8 per cent unemployment rate and 50 per cent combined unemployment and under-employment in Q3, 2017). Graduates tend to prefer fewer in supply white collar jobs rather than often rural, seasonal and low skilled and lower paying blue-collar jobs that are more in supply,” the report added.
According to the NBS report, the nation’s economy moved out of recession technically (a situation synonymous with increased job loss and a freeze in new employments) in the second quarter of 2017, when GDP grew at 0.71 per cent (revised) and then 1.5 per cent in Q3, with many economic activities however still contracting or recovering sub-optimally.
It noted that “a return to economic growth provides an impetus to employment. However employment growth may lag and unemployment rates worsen especially at the end of a recession and for many months after.
“The unemployment rate induced by a recession typically peaks about 15-18 months after the beginning of a recession or 4-8 months after the end of a recession before it returns to its pre-recession trend. This, in the case of Nigeria will be a peak in Q4 2017 which means we will only expect unemployment to return to its normal trend in 2018.”
The report however noted that the length of the lag depends on how deep and long the recession was and how stable and fast the recovery is as well as on the economic sectors diving the recovery (labour or capital/technology intensive).
However, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s major opposition party has reacted to the latest unemployment figures released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) means that more Nigerians would lose their jobs under the present administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, National Publicity Secretary of the party said, “More Nigerians are going to lose their jobs under this incompetent regime. We have said it before that the President is not qualified to lead.
“The President is angry with Nigerians for not voting for him on many occasions when he approached them for their votes.
“Now, he is showing his anger by punishing them,” assuring that there is hope for them in the future.
