National Bureau of Statistics said Nigeria’s unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1 percent in the first quarter of 2023 from 33.3 percent of the fourth quarter of 2020.
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Semiu Adeniran disclosed this at the launch of the new methodology in Abuja.
He said the new figure brings Nigeria’s Labour Survey in tandem with international standard.
The Statistician-General said the survey was conducted in collaboration with the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation and has been adopted by 26 countries in Africa, adding that the figure for the fourth quarter of 2022 was 5.3 percent.
Mr. Adeniran explained that the new methodology considered employed persons as those who engaged in at least one hour of work during the last seven days the survey was conducted.
He maintained that the new unemployment figure was not to favour the Tinubu led administration but to bring up the method used to conduct labour survey in the country.
The last survey was conducted using the 13th ICLS, which was birthed and adopted in 1982 at the International Conference of Labour Statisticians.
The Bureau earlier announced that it would use a new methodology which aggregates the number of employed and unemployed persons in the country to get accurate data on labour force.
“Following guidelines adopted during the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in Geneva in 2013, the aim of this re-evaluation was two-pronged. On one hand was to ensure that the methodology is in line with international best practice and locally relevant, and on the other hand, to ensure that a production process was robust enough to produce estimates on a sustainable basis (avoiding periodic gaps), and also, produce more labour market indicators and analysis that will inform government about the employment and job situation in Nigeria”.
The old method defined those that are in the labour force to be from 15-64 years old but the new adopted one views it to be 15 and above that are willing, available, and able when the survey is conducted.
