Nigeria’s unemployment rate rises to 4.2% in Q2, says NBS

Nigeria’s unemployment rate in the second quarter experienced a slight rise from 4.1% to 4.2%, the Labour Force report for the Q2, 2023 released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has shown.

According to the report released Thursday, more women of working age were unemployed compared to their male counterparts. The male unemployment rate stood at 3.5% while that of women was 5.9%.

When analysed according to location, the Urban unemployment rate was 5.9% while rural unemployment stood at 2.5%.

Youth unemployment, those between the ages of 15 to 24 years stood at 7.2%- an increase of 0.3% from the 6.9% recorded in Q1.

In Q2 2023, 77.1% of Nigeria’s working-age population was in employment. Disaggregating by sex, the employment-to-population ratio was 79.3% for men and 74.9% for women respectively. The employment-to-population ratio in urban areas was 73.8% compared to 80.5% in rural areas.

The percentage of the work population who are underemployed dropped from 12.2% in Q1 to 11.8% in the period under review.

Analysing underemployment according to gender, more women were underemployed (15.3%) while that more men was 8.4%.

READ ALSO: Nigeria govt moves to tackle unemployment, launches talent programme

Underemployment in urban areas was reported at 10.3% while in rural areas was 13.2%.

According to the NBS, those underemployed are those who work less than 40 hours per week and are willing to work more.

According to the NBS report, 88.0% of employed Nigerians are self-employed while the other 12.0% are employees in Q2.

Analysed according to gender, more women reported being self-employed at 91.0% while the share of employed males in self-employment stood at 85.2%.

Around 92.7% of employed Nigerians were working in the informal sector according to the report. This figure gets higher with women and those without formal education.

The rate of employed people without formal education in the informal sector stood at 99.6%.

In urban areas, informal employment was responsible for 88% of the working population while for rural areas the rate for Q2 is 97.3%.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now