Nigeria’s unemployment rate significantly surged to 5.0% in the third quarter of 2023, representing an increase of 0.8% points increase over the unemployment rate of the preceding quarter.
The figures were given by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its ‘Labour Force Survey Q3 2023’ report published on Monday on its website.
An analysis of the report showed that the rate of unemployment among persons with post-secondary education also rose to 7.8% in the quarter under review while the unemployment rate among youths aged between 15 to 24 years also increased to 8.6%, representing 1.4% rise when compared to the rate recorded in Q2 2023.
A further appraisal of the labour force market report reflected that the unemployment rate in urban areas was 6.0% in Q3 2023, indicating a slight increase of 0.1% from the rate recorded in the preceding quarter of the year.
Similarly, time-related underemployment in the quarter under review marginally rose to 12.3%, showing a slight increase of 0.5% from the rate recorded in Q2 2023 but increased by 1.4% compared to the rate in Q4 2022
However, the statistics agency reported that the labour force participation rate among the working-age population declined to 79.5% in Q3 2023 compared to 80.4% in Q2 2023 even as the employment-to-population ratio dipped to 75.6% in the quarter under review by 1.5% compared to the ratio of Q2 2023.
The Bureau further clarified that the combined rate of unemployment and time-related underemployment as a share of the labour force population (LU2) increased to 17.3% in Q3 2023 from 15.5% in Q2 2023 and that about 87.3% of workers were self-employed in Q3 2023.
In addition, it disclosed that the proportion of workers in wage employment in the quarter under review was 12.7% while 4.1% of the working-age population was in subsistence agriculture in Q3 2023.
The report reflected that Informal employment rate in Q3 2023 was 92.3% compared with the 92.7% rate recorded in the preceding quarter just as the percentage of youth Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET Rate) was 13.7% in Q3 2023.
