World Bank Report: Nigeria Facing Worst Unemployment Crisis In 4 Decades

World Bank Report: Nigeria Facing Worst Unemployment Crisis In 4 Decades

World Bank Report: Nigeria Facing Worst Unemployment Crisis In 4 Decades

Leshi Adebayo

One of the major research findings in recent World Bank Report on Nigeria’s economy is the problem of unemployment. The 99-paged research manual expressly stated that the current state of unemployment in Nigeria is its worst in the last 40 years. This however, came to be when the COVID-19 virus was discovered in February 2020. How was this determined?

According to the recent findings based on World Bank’s Report, “Between 2014 and 2020, Nigeria’s working-age population grew from 102 million to 122 million, growing at an average rate of approximately 3% per year. Similarly, Nigeria’s active labor force population, i.e., those willing and able to work among the working-age population, grew from 73 million in 2014 to 90 million in 2018, summing up to 17.5 million new entrants to Nigeria’s active labor force. Since 2018, however, the active labor force population has dramatically decreased to around 70 million—lower than the level in 2014— while the number of Nigerians who are in the working-age population but not active in the labor force has increased from 29 million to 52 million between 2014 and 2020.”
Furthermore, the report disclosed that, “The expanding working-age population combined with scarce domestic employment opportunities is creating high rates of unemployment, particularly for Nigeria’s youth. Between 2010 and 2020, the unemployment rate rose five-fold, from 6.4% in 2010 to 33.3% in 2020. The rise in unemployment rates has been particularly acute since the 2015-2016 economic recession and has further worsened as COVID-19 led to the worst recession in four decades in 2020. The unemployment rate, defined nationally as the percentage of the labor force population who could not find at least 20 hours of work in the reference period, was significantly higher for youth (42.5%) compared to non-youth (26.3%). Women are also particularly vulnerable in Nigeria’s labor market compared to 46.4% of
the male population who are fully employed, only 40.6% of women are fully employed. The share of fully employed is significantly lower in rural areas compared to urban areas.

The World Bank Report concludes on the research with this, “Increasingly, educated Nigerians are struggling to find employment opportunities in the country. While unemployment rates have increased substantially for Nigerians across all education levels over the years, it
has become progressively challenging for educated Nigerians to find employment opportunities. Between 2010 and 2020, the unemployment rates for Nigerians with secondary and post-secondary education increased by more than 30 percentage points, preventing new educated entrants in the labor market from earning returns on human capital investment.” This unemployment problem in Nigeria has contributed a lot to the rise in legal and illegal migration to other countries.

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