People walk in a market in Abuja on June 3.
People walk in a market in Abuja on June 3.
Unemployment in Nigeria reached its highest point in at least a decade this quarter as the coronavirus pandemic made it even more difficult to increase output in Africa’s largest economy to keep up with its expanding population. .
The unemployment rate rose to 27.1%, according to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics published Friday, up from 23.1% in the 3rd quarter of 2018, the last time the firm published labour-population statistics.
The unemployment rate at Africa’s largest oil producer has more than doubled in the more than 4 years as the country struggled to pull out of a contraction in 2016.Even the quality of employment has deteriorated with one in two Nigerians unemployed or underemployed.
“The underemployment rate has risen much faster, so the combined unemployment rate is now 56%, compared to 43%,” said Michael Famoroti, Stears’ leading economist, founded in Lagos.Real unemployment can be much higher, with official statistics showing that the labor force has across another 10 million people since 2018, Famoroti said.
The slow recovery has been interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, which has reduced gross profits and dried up the source of dollars that companies want in a country that has long struggled to create jobs for its young population.population, 34.9% in the current quarter and underemployment in this segment 28.2%.Nigeria’s economy is expected to contract by 5.4% this year, its worst contraction in nearly 40 years, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Unemployment is likely to be excessive even as President Muhammadu Buhari’s government launches a program to employ some 800,000 more people to build new infrastructure to mitigate the pandemic.
“The country had basic structural imbalances before Covid that have not yet been corrected, so I think we expect an increase in the unemployment rate,” said Omotola Abimbola, an analyst at Chapel Hill Denham Securities Ltd.
For years, Nigeria’s rate of population expansion has outpaced economic output, making it the country with the number of other people who are deficient in the world. With a fertility rate of five young people consistent with women, Nigeria is expected to be the third most populous country in the world.by 2050 with more than three hundred million people, according to the United Nations.
The number of other people for paints through Nigeria’s largest hiring website, Jobberman Ltd.