Over a million Nigerians gave up on job hunting in early 2024 despite the Federal Government’s job creation claims, FIJ can report.
This data was gleaned from the National Labour Force Survey (NLFS), published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.
According to the data, 3.6% of Nigerians outside the labour force — about 1.2 million people — became discouraged from seeking employment between January and March 2024. This is a leap from the 3.1% in the third quarter of 2023.
“In Q1 2024, 3.6% of people outside the labour force were discouraged job seekers, compared to 3.1% in Q3 2023. This increase suggests that more persons are becoming discouraged from seeking employment. The rate of discouraged job seekers among males was 3.4% and among females was 3.8% in Q1 2024.”, the report stated.
Discouraged job seekers by category. Source: NBS NFLS Q1, 2024
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Going by the NFLS report for 2023, the situation has not changed a bit. The country recorded the same percentage of discouraged job seekers, at 3.6% in December 2023. Similarly, the country had recorded bleaker percentages, not figures, in this same category in the recent past. In the second quarter of 2023, for instance, about 3.9% of the people outside the labour force were recorded to be discouraged from job search.
Why are people giving up? The report lists age, disability, lack of experience, lack of qualifications, job scarcity, and difficulty in finding suitable employment as key reasons.
But digging into the numbers from Q1 2024 reveals some rather interesting peculiarities.
First, the largest group of discouraged job seekers fell within the 45–55 age bracket and was followed closely by those aged 35–45. Most people did not give up job search because they were too old.
Also, the highest percentage of the job seekers, at 7.1%, hold a post secondary qualification. This connotes that most of the discouraged job seekers did not lose interest due to under-qualification.
Labour Market Indicators Showing Discouraged Job Seekers by Education Qualifications
This reality is against the backdrop of several puported job creation and empowerment accomplishments listed by the Federal Government of Nigeria. For instance, in the buildup to the conclusion of the #EndBadGovernance protests, Bola Tinubu had proudly hammered on how his adminisration had spent resources to empower youths and fund education.
Among other things, Tinubu highlighted $620 million secured to empower, train, and create jobs for young Nigerians. He also said that his adminstration had created 240,000 jobs through small and medium enterprises.
“This week, I ordered the release of an additional N50 billion each for NELFUND — the student loan, and Credit Corporation from the proceeds of crime recovered by the EFCC,” the president said.
“Additionally, we have secured $620 million under the Digital and Creative Enterprises (IDiCE), a programme to empower our young people, creating millions of IT and technical jobs that will make them globally competitive. These programmes include the 3 million Technical Talents scheme. Unfortunately, one of the digital centres was vandalised during the protests in Kano. What a shame!
“In addition, we have introduced the Skill-Up Artisans Programme (SUPA); the Nigerian Youth Academy (NIYA); and the National Youth Talent Export Programme (NATEP).
“Also, more than N570 billion has been released to the 36 states to expand livelihood support to their citizens, while 600,000 nano-businesses have benefitted from our nano-grants. An additional 400,000 more nano-businesses are expected to benefit.
“Furthermore, 75,000 beneficiaries have been processed to receive our N1 million Micro and Small Business single-digit interest loans, starting this month. We have also built 10 MSME hubs within the past year, created 240,000 jobs through them and 5 more hubs are in progress which will be ready by October this year.
“Payments of N1 billion each are also being made to large manufacturers under our single-digit loans to boost manufacturing output and stimulate growth.”
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The good news is that the overall unemployment rate dropped slightly, from 5.4% in 2023 to 5.3% in early 2024. The proportion of youths not employed, in training, or in school (NEET) also saw a marginal decline, from 15.6% in 2023 to 14.4% in Q1 2024.
Bad news?
If the quarter-to-quarter comparison is anything to go by, however, Nigeria may have started on the path to a downward trend in employment.
The post REPORT: Despite FG’s Job Claims, 1.2 Million Nigerians Gave Up on Job Search in Early 2024 appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.