The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced Nigeria’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.1 percent in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023, from 5.3 percent recorded in the previous quarter.
Recall that the bureau had pegged the country’s unemployment rate at 33.3 percent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2020,
In a statement released on Thursday, NBS said the latest unemployment report adopted a new methodology and presented an in-depth analysis of the labour market.
According to NBS the last survey was conducted using the 13th ICLS, which was birthed and adopted in 1982 at the International Conference of Labour Statisticians.
Speaking during the launch of the new methodology in Abuja on Thursday, the Chief Executive Officer of NBS, Semiu Adeniran said the new figure brings Nigeria’s Labour Survey in tandem with international standard.
The survey, according to him, was conducted in collaboration with the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation and has also been adopted by 26 countries in Africa.
He added that the figure for the fourth quarter of 2022 was 5.3 percent.
Adeniran said the new methodology considered employed persons as those who engaged in at least one hour of work during the last seven days the survey was conducted, stressing that the new figure was not to give the new government a good face but to bring up the method used to conduct labour surveys in the country.
