By Francesca Hangeior
A survey by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has shown that about 92.3 percent of workers in Nigeria are in informal employment as at third quarter 2023, Q3’23.
The survey report titled: “Labour Force Statistics”, released yesterday also showed that the share of Nigerians that were underemployed within the period was 12.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in the country increased by 0.8 percentage points to 5.0 percent in Q3’23 from 4.2 percent recorded in Q2’23, according to the report.
The NBS report stated further: “The unemployment rate by sex among men was 4.0 percent and among women was 6.0 percent.
“Disaggregation by location, the unemployment rate was 6.0 percent in urban areas and 4.0 percent in rural areas.
“Focusing on young people, the youth unemployment rate was 8.6 percent.”
On underemployment rate, the bureau said: “In Q3’23, the share of employed Nigerians that were underemployed was 12.3 percent.
“In disaggregating underemployment by sex, the share of employed men who were underemployed was 8.7 percent while the share of employed women who were underemployed was 16 percent.” On employment rate, NBS said:
“In Q3’23, 75.6 percent of Nigeria’s working-age population was in employment. “In Q3’23, 87.3 percent of employed Nigerians were primarily selfemployed with the remaining 12.7 percent being primarily engaged as employees.
“The share of employed persons in informal employment was 92.3 percent in Q3’23 a reduction of 0.4 percent when compared to 92.7 percent in the previous quarter.
The rate of informal employment among people living in rural areas was 97.2 percent while the urban informality rate was estimated at 87.5 percent
“Disaggregating by sex, the employment-topopulation ratio was 77.7 percent for males and 73.5 percent for females.
“The employment-to population ratio in urban areas was 71.1 percent and 80.7 percent in rural areas.” The report also showed that 13.7 percent of youth are not in employment, education or training (NEET Rate) in Q3’23.