May 19, 2015
In Nigeria, if you work for less than 40 hours a week, you are regarded as unemployed. This has been the formula employed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for computing unemployment statistics. However, this has now been modified to comply with the International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s definition of employment.
According to the ILO, unemployed persons in the labour force are those who are: out of work, want a job, have actively sought work in the reference week and are available to start work in the next fortnight; or out of work and have accepted a job that they are waiting to start in the next fortnight.
“In other words, once you have been employed for at least an hour in week you will be classified as employed under ILOs definition,” said Nigeria’s Statistician General, Yemi Kale, who unveiled the new methodology for computing unemployment and revised unemployment series at a stakeholders seminar today in Abuja.
Kale noted that if this definition was followed strictly, the unemployment rate in Nigeria, for instance, will be 2.2 percent as against the reported 23.9 percent.
“This isn’t surprising given that most Nigerians are entrepreneurial by nature and will almost definitely be engaged in some activity for an hour a week even if that activity is not sufficient to keep them engaged.”
Thus, Kale inferred that the problem in Nigeria is more of underemployment rather than unemployment.
Under the new methodology, Nigeria’s unemployment rate will be calculated from about 65.7 million and not the entire population of the country. This is because students, voluntary housewives
who cannot work or those younger than 15 or older than 65, are not regarded as part of the labour force an will therefore, not be counted.
