Employment Numbers Hit the Bottom, Unemployment Rate Rose to 27.1%

• Overall employment declined by 11.1 million in Q2 20 compared to Q3 18
• Unemployment rate increased 398bps to 27.1% in Q2 20
• Female unemployment surged 1.4 million compared to the decline in Male unemployment of 559,061.

The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) published the long awaited Nigerian Labour Market Statistics this morning. The data provided little information for comparability, with the Q2 2020 data only comparable with the Q3 2018 numbers published in December 2018. As such, estimating the cost of economic disruptions occasioned by Covid-19 will be largely impossible, as we cannot estimate the level of improvement/contraction in employment since the Q3 2018 numbers were published.

The data showed that overall employment declined 11.1 million between Q2 20 and Q3 18 to 58.5 million. Interestingly, the labour force population declined over the same period by 10.1 million to 80.3 million people (indicating a decline in labour force participation rate by 6.89% to 71.4%), with the unemployment rate over the same period rising by 837,000 to 21.8 million people. The data showed a 398bps jump in the unemployment rate to 27.1% in Q2 2020 compared to 23.1% in Q3 2018 and the underemployment rate also expanding by 844bps to 28.6% when compared to the Q3 18 number of 20.1%.