The rising unemployment and under employment rate in Q3 put at 18.8 percent according to the latest figures from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is already eliciting worry in respect to government’s policy in addressing such concerns from industry analysts.
They further express worry that the government’s policy has not been able to nip in the bud the excruciating pain created by loss of jobs before and after the time the economy recovered from recession in Q2 2017.
Celestine Okeke, Lead Partner-Micro,Small and Medium Enterprises Advocacy and Support Initiative told BusinessDay while reacting to the unemployment report that:”The report has exposed further government’s poor policy drive towards sustaining already existing jobs and even averting loss of jobs”
He also attributed poor implementation of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Federal Government as a key factor that has also spiked up the unemployment and under employment rate in the country.
“Over time,what I and my organisation has discovered is that there is always a disconnect from the government’s policies and the drivers who are mainly government’s officials and civil servants.The ERGP is a major tool that is expected to attract private capital to the tune of 80% to the Nigerian economy, but you heard government seeking the help of Malaysians to assist in the implementation strategy”
This is why most of the government’s policies don’t really have much impact on the economy,and rising unemployment always on the rise.Let me tel you with the challenge of Fuel Scarcity, be rest assured that Q1 2018 figure will be worse off it government doesn’t address key issues”Celestine said.
Also,Ike Ubaka, the President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria,told BusinessDay that government’s policies doesn’t realy come with a defined and trackable strategies for implementations.
According to him,”Once government policies don’t come with implementable strategies for implementation that could be tracked per time,it is bound to fail,and once it fails,people loose their jobs,whereas government officials and consultants to those policies feed fat”
Meanwhile,the total number of umemployed people moved from 14.2% in Q4 2016 to 16.2% in Q2 2017 and 18.8% in Q3 2017 .Also,the number of people within the labor force who are unemployed or underemployed increased from 13.6 million and 17.7 million respectively in Q2 2017, to 15.9 million and 18.0 million in Q3 2017.
Also,the total unemployment and underemployment combined increased from 37.2% in the previous quarter to 40.0% in Q3 2017.
More so,during the quarter Q3 2017, 21.2% of women within the labor force (aged 15-64 and willing, able, and actively seeking work) were unemployed, compared with 16.5% of men within the same period.
In Q3 2017, 16.4% of rural and 23.4% of urban dwellers within the labor force were unemployed and unemployment is increasing at a slightly faster rate for urban dwellers than it is for their rural counterparts.
The report noted that underemployment is predominant in the rural areas (26.9% of rural residents within the labor force in Q3 2017), are underemployed (engaged in work for less than 20 hours a week); compared to 9% of urban residents within the same period.
The report also noted that states with higher focus on seasonal agriculture tend to have higher rates of underemployment compared to unemployment and may swing from high fulltime employment during periods of planting and harvest when they are fully engaged on their farms to periods of underemployment and even unemployment at other periods in between.
Accordingly, States with higher propensity of women to marry early or be housewives and hence will not be considered part of the labor force also tend to have lower unemployment rates. These States tend to have higher proportion of their economically active populations outside the labor force thereby reducing the number looking for work and hence the number that can be unemployed.
Nevertheless, in Q3 2017, Rivers state reported the highest unemployment rate (41.82%) followed by Akwa-Ibom (36.58%), Bayelsa state (30.36%), and Imo state (29.47%) while Katsina, Jigawa, Gombe, and Yobe, recorded the highest underemployment rates during the reviewing period, of 46.19%, 43.01%, 38.38%, and respectively.
