The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, reports that Nigeria’s unemployment rate rose from 13.3 per cent in the second quarter to 13.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2016.
The report, released on Friday says that the number of unemployed in the labour force increased by 555,311 while underemployment rate rose from 19.3 per cent in second quarter to 19.7 per cent in the third quarter.
The report stated that unemployment covered persons (aged 15–64) who, during the reference period, were currently available for work, actively seeking for work but were without work.
The report further stated that the economically active population or working age population (persons within ages 15 and 64) increased from 106.69 million in second quarter to 108.03 million in the third quarter.
“This represents a 1.26 per cent increase over the previous quarter and a 3.57 per cent increase when compared to the third quarter 2015.’’
In 3rd quarter, the labour force population (i.e. those within the working age population willing, able and actively looking for work) increased to 80.67 million from 79.9 million in second quarter.
“This represents an increase of 0.98 per cent in the labour force during the quarter.
“This means about 782,886 persons from the economically active population entered the labour force, that is individuals that were able, willing and actively looking for work.
“This magnitude of increase between second and third quarter is smaller when compared to first and second quarter, which was an increase of 1.39 million in the labour force population.
“Within the reference period, the total number of persons in full time employment (who did any form of work for at least 40 hours) decreased by 272,499 or 0.51 per cent.
“This figure decreased when compared to the previous quarter, and decreased by 1.66 million or 3.01 per cent when compared to third quarter of 2015.’’
The report stated that with an economically active or working age population (108.03 million) and labour force population (80.67 million), 27.36million persons within the economically active or working age population decided not to work.
It said that the population decided not to work for one reason or the other in the third quarter, hence they were not part of the labour force and could not be considered unemployed.