Rivers and Others Lead States with Highest Number of Unemployed People in New Ranking

As reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the country’s rate of unemployment shot up to 5.3% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 5.0% in the third quarter of 2023. This report revealed that Abia, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Rivers states had the worst unemployment rates in 2023.

Statistics on unemployed persons revealed that Abia State came first with 18.7%, and in the second and third places were FCT and Rivers State with 14.1% and 13.4%, respectively. Active and self-employment among the residents of Abia State cannot explain why approximately 362, 000 persons appeared to remain unemployed. I over 1.25 million, two million were self employed while i 1.51 were in informal sectors with less formal opportunities resulting.

The FCT recorded approximately 150,000 people without any job against 258,000 in paid employment. A good number of its’s total working age population around 690,000 take active in self employment and another 742,000 in most informal jobs. At the same time, 408,000 residents in Rivers State were without jobs. It has been noted however the country’s informal sector is very extensive with 2.24 million in informal employment and 704,000 formal jobs.

According to NBS data, self-employment witnessed a marginal decline from 86 percent Q1 2023 to 84 upcoming quarter, even though the grows in periods of employed population ratio, Q3 2023 and Q1 2024 among employees increased. Even though the self-employment ratio for women was higher, 87.9 percent, and lower for men, 79.9 percent. On the other hand, rural employment was more severely affected with an unemployment rate of 6.8 as compared to urban regions which had a 3.5 level.

The gender difference was evident as the rate of unemployment for women was at 6.0, 1.3 more than that of men, 4.7 and widening unleveling the population’s gender composition. The report further stressed that development as the working population of Nigeria stood at 116.6 million in the year 2023 and females comprising 52% while males were 48% of this population.