The National Bureau of Statistics says a new medothology it adopted to calculate Nigeria’s unemployment has seen the figures dropped from a scary 33.3% in 2020 to 4.1% in the first quarter of 2023.
The new methodology, according to the NBS also helped to the country’s unemployment rate at 5.3% at the end of 2022.
The indicated that the 2020 figures and the current one were calculated using different methodologies.
Commenting on the report, the Statistician-General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, stressed that the drop was basically due to a new methodology adopted by the National Bureau of Statistics in conducting the survey, and not necessarily government performance.
The Economy could not establish whether different methodolgies used in calculating unemployment rate should yield highly significant differences in the figures.
However, the statistician general clarified that there is no real basis to compare the data from two years ago when the report was last released to the present figures.
He said: “NBS has not said that unemployment rate in Nigeria has reduced from the 33.3% to whatever the figure it is now, therefore government should go to sleep, no, that is not what we have said.
“The figures today are not based on any performance of any sort, but strictly, and I repeat, strictly on the change in methodology which is based on the new ILO standard, which Nigeria is part and parcel of, as a country.”
The nation’s unemployment rate which is an outcome of the labour force survey (LFS) conducted in Nigeria, is coming two years after the last official data of 33.3% for the fourth quarter of 2020 which was released in March 2021.
The LFS is quarterly survey designed with the objective to produce official national statistics on the labour force, employment and unemployment for monitoring and planning purposes.
Competent sources indicated that the new methodology for the Nigeria Labour Force Survey has brought Nigeria’s Labour Force Statistics in line with international standards and best practices
However Nigeria has failed to ensure publication of the report as at when due, as no data was published for the four quarters of 2021 as well as the first three quarters of 2022.
