According to the National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) recently revised methodology, the unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2023.
Employed persons are defined by the NBS as those who worked for at least one hour during the previous seven days, in accordance with the updated methodology that was made public in August.
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The NBS stated in a report on Thursday that the number represented a slight increase of 0.1 percent from the 4.1 percent reported in the first quarter of 2023.
According to the report, 80.4 percent of Nigeria’s working-age population took part in the poll.
It said that the jobless rate for women was 5.9% and for men it was 3.5 percent.
The survey also stated that, when broken down by location, the unemployment rate was 2.5% in rural areas and 5.9% in urban areas.
Regarding youth, it stated that in Q2 2023, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 was 7.2%.
It continued by saying that 88 percent of Nigerians in employment were mostly self-employed, with the remaining 12 percent primarily working as employees. It also added that more women than men are self-employed.
According to the report, 91.0 percent of working women and 85.2 percent of working men were self-employed.
The percentage of workers in the unorganised sector with informal jobs is known as the informal employment rate.
The percentage of unofficial employment was 92.7 percent.
According to the survey, women are more likely than males to be employed informally, as they were in the preceding two quarters. While the rate of informal employment is high for all age categories, it was higher for those over 65 and younger (15–24 years old).
In rural areas, the rate of informal employment is 97.3 percent, whereas in urban areas, the estimate is 88 percent.
Research indicates that there appears to be a negative correlation between informality and educational attainment, as individuals with greater qualifications had lower rates of informal employment. Informal employment accounted for 99.6% of the population without a formal education.
