The widely expected fourth quarter of 2020 unemployment data was released this afternoon, showing an increase of 6.2 per cent to 33.4 per cent.
This makes Nigeria the country with the third highest rate of unemployment in the World after Bosnia and Herzegovina (33.69 per cent) and the second highest in Africa next to Namibia (33.4 per cent).
This data point will be very disturbing to policy makers after the stimulus package of N2.3trn (4% of GDP) and the recent greatly heralded exit from recession.
According to Financial Derivates Company Limited, it is more worrisome when conflated with the high level of multidimensional poverty of 64.8 per cent in the Northwest, as this shows a simmering crisis of poverty, unemployment, debt and productivity in Nigeria. The cheery news, however, is that underemployment declined by approximately the same magnitude 5.8 per cent as the increase in unemployment.
Analysts expect unemployment to rise at a slower pace in the coming quarters. Our projection is 35 per cent in first quarter of 2021.
