On Friday, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released its latest Unemployment Watch report for the first quarter of 2016. The report revealed that the number of unemployed Nigerians from December 2015 to March 2016 increased by 518,000 bring the total value to over 1.45 million people. This means that the unemployment rate in the country has risen to 12.1 percent. According to the report, this is due to the government’s inability to create the required 1.5 million jobs to keep the unemployment rate constant at 10.4 percent, before the end of December 2015.

From the report, here are five facts you need to know about unemployment in Nigeria:

Economically active persons

According to the report, economically active or working age population under the period of review increased from 105.02 million to 106 million. In view of this, the number of people willing, able and actively looking for work also increased from 76.9 million to 78.4 million. During this period, a lot of companies also laid off staff due to the economic situation within the country.

Entrepreneurship

The number of Nigerians in the economically active population who chose not to actively look for work, declined from 28.06 million in December 2015 to 27.5 million by end of March, 2016. This implies that Nigeria has a growing population of Nigerians starting up their own businesses as opposed to waiting to get employed.

Underemployment

As the number of graduates in the country continues to increase, qualified graduates would be seen doing menial jobs or rather jobs that they are overqualified for. According to the data released by the NBS, the number of underemployed people increased from 18.7 percent representing 14.41 million to 19.1 percent representing 15.02 million persons.

Gender inequality

The issue of gender inequality in the country is still being overlooked despite a series of advocacy campaigns to promote equality in the country. According to the report, the population of women in the labour bracket age were the most affected as 14 percent of women are unemployed and 22.2 percent are underemployed.

This shows that the government needs to step up its game and create more jobs for Nigeria’s working population. They should also ensure that women are also represented adequately in the workforce. The government should also play an important part in encouraging more Nigerians to become entrepreneurs as opposed to looking for jobs.

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