With data from the National Bureau of Statistics available to Daily Sun, we can authoritatively reveal that between 1999 and 2011, the nation witnessed a sharp drop in the employment ratio by 15.7 percent. Unfortunately, in the 12 years data obtained, there was no increase or improvement in any year in the years reviewed.
Whereas the nation, from the document, had an unemployment ratio of 8.2 percent in 1999, it plummeted to 13.1 percent the following year, a sharp decline of about five percent. Request About the first week of February, Daily Sun had written the Bureau and the Ministry of Labour and Productivity to obtain from them authentic and official documents on jobs creation and losses in the country since 2005.
After very long and rigorous delays, Daily Sun incidentally got a copy of the document from the Bureau with startling figures on the dwindling fortunes of the nation's economy as depicted by the unemployment rate and the steady decline to worse situations in the past four years. The Labour Ministry has, however, not found it worthy to give any reply to our request. What looked like a reply was a text message a very senior officer of the ministry sent indicating subtly that the ministry had no such data.
He sent a message that the request did not get to him, although at the point of submission at the office, the letter was duly acknowledged. But he later added in verbal communication on phone, the off-the-record style, that he was not sure the ministry had any such document and that should be the reason the receivers of the letter since early February refused to give any form of reply. Ironically, the years sampled had been the ones in which Nigeria had experimented in democracy.
Under reported However, while the data from the Bureau remains the official figure, some other sources available to us indicate the Bureau must have underestimated or under reported the development. In March 2009, the World Bank published a document that Nigeria had about 40 million jobless citizens. The report put the percentage of joblessness at 28.57. In the same 2009, contrary to World Bank records, the Bureau stated that the unemployment ratio was 19.7percent.
The admittance of the FG that the World Bank record was authentic through the Labour Ministry in the same month of publication was a popular media issue that was widely reported. Based on the corroboration by the FG and the fact that between 2009 and 2011, the rate dropped to 23.9percent, according to the Bureau data, that implies simultaneously that the 5percent percent drop adopted in the World Bank's figure within the period means the actual unemployment rate would be about 32.77percent, some 42 million persons in raw figure as at 2011.
Worst season The next terrible season of the crisis was between 1999 and 2000 when the unemployment ratio declined from 8.2percent to 13.1poercent, almost 5percent in one year. Another bad era was between 2008 and 2011 at a decline ratio of 9.0percent, from 14.9percent to 23.9percent. The facts also showed that the only year Nigeria had single digit unemployment ratio in the years reviewed was 1999. While the best in the employment rate remains 1999, the worst is 2011. And on the gender analysis aspect, women are worse off than men.
The unemployment rate for the women in the years is 23.5percent while men have 19.6percent. But on age group, the bracket between 15 and 24 are the worst affected of the four sub-orders. The age bracket of the population sampled is between 15 and 64. Education factor The Statistics Bureau data also indicated that educational level was a major factor that affected or influenced access to employment. The data grouped persons exposed to unemployment into 10 sub-groups ranging from those that have no formal education, those below primary education qualification and the employable population with doctorate qualification.
The doctorate caliber has unemployment rate of 19.6percent, master's degree level has 20.1percent, first degree has 23.1percent and same with OND, NCE cadre while SSS level has 23.9 and primary school certificate qualification has 21.8percent. States At the states breakdown, Oyo and Osun states have the most favourable figure of unemployment, while the next to them is Anambra. Although Lagos maintained a good showing considering the pressure on it by graduates for job, it had one of the worst cases of all the states in 2010 with an alarming 36.5percent. But the worst affected of the states is Zamfara that sustained very high double-digit rate in all the 12 years.
Whereas Oyo and Osun in one year, 2008, hit below one percent ratio, Zamfara's best year was 13.3percent in 2009 and its worst and in fact the worst for all the states and all the years was in 2003 with alarming 71.5percent joblessness rate. Another state that reaped very bleak returns just next to Zamfara was Taraba State. As the states suffered bad days in employment between 2007 and 2011 when almost all the figures came in double digits, only Benue had bright four straight years between 2007 and 2010 where the rate remained consistently at single digit. It had the best year in 2010 with a rate of 6.0percent and the worst in the four years in 2009 with 8.5percent joblessness.
Within 2007 and 2011, about 95percent of the states faced their worst season and hit double figures. The FTC also had a bad showing all through with the worst year in 2007 when it had 46.8percent joblessness. The next year, there was a sharp drop to 8.7percent. Its overall best was in year 2000 when the FCT unemployment rate was 3.9percent. However, the worst affected state in the South of the nation was Cross River State. It maintained high double-digit ratio in eight of the 12 years sampled. But at the national level, there was no interruption in the steady decline since 1999.
(DailySun)
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