A total of 23.18 million persons in Nigeria are either unemployed or worked for less than 20 hours a week in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2020.
This is according to the Q4 report on unemployment released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.
This shows a 2.1 million increase from the number recorded in the second quarter (Q2) 2020.
It also means that 33.3 percent of the labour force in Nigeria were unemployed in Q4 2020, from 27.1 percent in second quarter 2020.
While the underemployment rate decreased from 28.6 percent to 22.8 percent, a combination of both the unemployment and underemployment rate for the reference period gave a figure of 56.1 percent.
According to the report, Imo State recorded the highest rate of unemployment with 56.64% followed by Adamawa – 54.89% and Cross River – 53.65%. The States with the lowest rates were Osun, Benue and Zamfara recording 11.65%, 11.98% and 12.99% respectively.
Benue State recorded the highest rate of underemployment with 43.52%, followed by Zamfara and Jigawa States with 41.73% and 41.29% respectively.
“Combining both unemployment and underemployment, the state that recorded the highest rate was Imo with 82.5% followed by Jigawa with 80%. Ogun and Sokoto states recorded the lowest of the combined rates, 26.2% and 33.7% respectively,” the report added.
