NIGERIA'S UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS HAS AGGRAVATED BETWEEN DEC 2015 AND MARCH 2016 - NBS

Nigeria’s unemployment crisis aggravated in the first quarter of 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS reports.

In a statement released, NBS said the unemployment rate had risen by 12.1 per cent.

In its latest Unemployment Watch report, the bureau said that between December 2015 and March 2016, the population of unemployed Nigerians increased by 518,000 to over 1.45 million.

According to the NBS, Nigeria’s gross domestic product contracted by 0.36 percent in the first quarter of the year as the worst crisis to grip Africa’s biggest economy in decades continues to deepen.

The NBS said its computations were based on the International Labour Organization, ILO definition, which described unemployment as the population of persons aged 15–64 who, during the reference period, were available for work, actively seeking for work, but were unable to find work.

Consequently, the NBS said the unemployed Nigerian population were those who were actively looking for work, but could either not find work, absolutely nothing at all for at least 20 hours, or did something but not for up to 20 hours in a week during the reference period.
Indications were that additional 1.53 million economically active persons joined the labour force between January 1 and March 31, 2016.

The report also said the number of Nigerians in the economically active population, who chose not to actively look for work, declined from 28.06 million in December 2015 to 27.5 million by end of March, 2016.

On the other hand, Tv360 gathered that the report said the number of underemployed, or those compelled by circumstances to do largely menial jobs not commensurate with their qualifications or not fully engaged for at least 20 hours during the period, increased by 607,613 persons.

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