At the recent Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) policy dialogue on the Nigerian economy, Nigeria's Minister of Finance quoted data from the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) saying that “unemployment in Nigeria is running at around 19.7 percent on average... and almost half of 15-24 year olds living in urban areas are jobless”. The theme of the policy dialogue was “Attaining sustainable economic growth through public-private partnership”,
The Minister of Finance, Mr Olusegun Aganga, also added that “almost half of 15-24 year olds living in urban areas are jobless” and said that reducing unemployment and enhancing economic productivity are top priorities for the National Economic Management team.
The minister continued by saying, "49% of the unemployed reside in the urban region and 39.7% unemployed are in the rural region. Some states are more affected than other states and what this means is that there is a massive disconnect between the economic growth achieved in the country in the last five years making this an economic issue which could grow to become a social issue.
“In creating jobs, the quality and quantity of the jobs to created are as well very important."
Recent statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that about 10 million Nigerians were unemployed in Nigeria at March, 2009.
The National Bureau of Statistics defines the unemployment rate as the percentage of Nigeria's labour force that is qualified to work but did not work for at least 39 hours in the week preceding the survey. The total labour force is made up of people aged between 15 to 64 years and excludes students, home-keepers, retired persons, stay-at-home parents, and persons unable to work or not interested in work.
The report showed that Bayelsa State had the highest unemployment rate, followed by Katsina State and Akwa Ibom state. Plateau State had the lowest unemployment rate and was followed by Ogun State and Benue state.
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Iormom Bruce Iortile Makurdi, Nigeria May 16, 2011
If indeed Benue state does not hv d worst case of unemployment then the situation has reached a serious crisis level in those states. There are so many people roaming d streets of major Benue cities in search of what to do. Most of these people have certificates of tertiary schools. Even without my data I would 've rejected the NBS statistics except that it did draw distinctions. For graduate unemployment, Benue wld indeed rank very high.
