NBS’ new Data show Nigeria’s informal Sector Drove total Jobs to 474,000 Q1 2015

… labour productivity weakest among emerging markets

Latest data from the National Bu- reau of Statistics (NBS) indicate that Nigeria’s informal sector drove to- tal jobs generated in the first quarter (Q1) of 2015 to 474,000.

At the same time, the data show how the labour productivity of Africa’s largest economy remains relatively weak- er than other emerging economies, despite several years of stable and high economic growth.

The NBS will release the latest jobs numbers mid week, but data available to BusinessDay indicate that while the informal sector jobs continued on a rising trend to 337,000 in Q1 2015, the formal sector, which rather required more skilled labour, consistently went down, settling at 135,000.

The total number of jobs generated has consistently risen since Q1 2014, thanks to the informal sector jobs, which had since Q2 2015 gone up from 115,000.

NBS reports that labour productivity rose only mar- ginally from about N420 to N639 between 2010 and 2014, but dropped slightly to N624.22 in Q1 2015 over the 2014 average.

The Q1 2015 drop comes at a time unemployment rose within the same pe- riod, while GDP dropped.

In its analysis, the data office was cautious not to draw cause effect relation- ships and make other infer- ences from this slight drop in labour force productivity until full-year 2015, given seasonality and its effects in Nigeria on output and labour hours.

But it attributed the sharp drop in labour pro- ductivity in dollar terms to the weakening of the US dollar to the naira during the quarter.

Further growth in labour productivity, however, appears to con- tinuously be constrained by the high level of unemploy- ment and underemploy- ment and its expansion as well as the low skill and income requirements asso- ciated with it, the statistics office equally states.

It advices that possible areas of interest therefore will relate to improving the unemployment situation in the country by improving the opportunities for more businesses to start, grow and employ labour.

“In addition, it is neces- sary to improve the qual- ity of education and train- ing of workers for higher productivity,” the data of- fice observes, noting that “methodological refine- ments on the approaches to determining factor pro- ductivities for the Nigerian economy were necessary.”

The NBS notes in an ear- lier report that Nigeria’s labour force went up by 0.69 percent to 73.4 million from 72.9 million in Q4 2014, indicating that 504,596 eco- nomically active persons within 15 64 entered the labour force – between Janu- ary 1 and March 31, 2015.

Within the same period, the total number in full employment (did some- thing for at least 40 hours) increased by 0.88 percent.

The number of underem- ployed in the labour force during the review quar- ter, however, declined by 6.46 percent, resulting in a reduction in the under- employment rate to 16.6 percent (12.2m) from 17.9 percent (13.1m) in Q4 2014.