NBS lowers parameter for rating employment
Sopuruchi Onwuka
Government has reduced the consideration for being categorized as employed in the country to near idleness as the country’s unemployment figures continues to global peak, insisting that about 75 percent of working age adults are employed in the country.
The new statistics conflicts with figures brandished by local and international agencies at the last Lagos Employment Summit showing the country’s total unemployment rate at over 35 percent and youth unemployment rate at over 40 percent.
To cut the rising rate of unemployment figures published by analysts, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics or NBS has cut the classification to a level where technically unemployed people would now be considered employed.
In the new classification, the NBS argues that the new methodology for determining employed in the country would now include even children of 15 years and above and old men of above 65 years who still work for as little as one hour in a week.
Even with the new consideration which pulled unemployment rate down to 4.1 percent, palpable joblessness still top the nation’s economic woes in separate reports by independent analysts.
In its latest data on unemployment in the country, the NBS adopted a methodology which now considers anyone who works a paid job for just one hour in a week as employed, raising worries that the official statistics agency might be painting misleading picture of the nation’s economic status.
The new methodology for counting jobless people in the country is a far departure from the 20 hours per week hitherto used by the agency for determining employed working age adults in the country.
Following its watered down criteria, the NBS declared that about 75 percent of Nigerians of 15 years and above are currently employed, angering analysts who consider that over 33 percent youths in the country are still unemployed while nearly 50 percent of all Nigerian workers are actually underemployed.
The Oracle Today quotes the Chairperson of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), Mrs Bola Adesola as stating at the last Lagos Employment Summit hosted last year that national rate of unemployment was at 33.3 percent, noting that the situation in Lagos State was worse at 37.14 percent.
Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr Sam Egube, declared at the event that unemployment rate among youths in the state was alarming at 42.5 percent. He noted that the situation was worsening at an annual unemployment growth of 3.2 percent.
Country Manager of International Finance Corporation (IFC), Mr Kalim Sha, noted that some 70 million Nigerians remain unemployed, adding that that the number would swell if the number of underemployed is added. He described the situation as critical index of the state of the economy, explaining that economic growth is directly connected to job creation.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Oluof Lagos State had stated that some five million youths join the labour force every year.
Panellists at the vent further posited that small and medium scale enterprises in the country account for over 80 percent of employment, lamenting that hostile fiscal and operating environment inflicts high attrition rate on the small business start-ups, forcing them to give up more workers into the labour market.
Other analysts contend that the new methodology adopted by the NBS in counting unemployed people in the country under-represent the unemployment crisis in the country where rising cost of doing business is forcing firms to downsize and sack workers on daily basis.
Many have questioned how the agency would classify a man who works for an hour in a week would be classified as employed, wondering if such a job would sustain him.
