By Agency Report
Nigeria’s unemployment rate stood at 4.2% in the April-June quarter, little changed from the previous quarter, showing a mixed trend of positive indicators and lingering challenges.
Unemployment in the second quarter marginally rose from 4.1% in the first quarter, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.
The jobless rate among young people aged 15-24 years rose to 7.2% from 6.9%. The unemployment rate in urban areas also edged up to 5.9% from 5.4%.
The NBS last published unemployment data in March 2021, where it reported a record high 33.3% jobless rate in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Under the revised system, the NBS defines employed persons as those in paid jobs and who worked for at least one hour in the last seven days, and considers underemployment as those working less than 40 hours a week and declaring themselves willing and available to work.
The NBS said the revised data “aligns with the rates in other developing countries where work, even if only for a few hours and in low-productivity jobs, is essential to make ends meet, particularly in the absence of any social protection for the unemployed”.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with more than 200 million people, has faced high unemployment for decades as rapid population growth outpaced economic growth.
Record debt, sluggish growth and poor infrastructure have held back the distribution of wealth in Africa’s biggest economy where tens of millions are employed in the largely unregulated informal sectors.
Informal employment accounted for 92.6% among all employed Nigerians during the period, according to the NBS, while underemployment was 12.2%, compared with 13.% in the fourth quarter. Reuters
