From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), earlier this week, stirred up controversy with its new unemployment rate, which it said, dropped from 33.3 per cent to 4.1 per cent.
NBS claimed that the new International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) standard recognised all forms of work carried out, whether paid or unpaid, and, sought to integrate labour statistics with other yardsticks such as Gross Domestic Products – GDP (labour productivity)
This implies that anybody who is engaged between one hour and 19 hours a week is fully employed.
But this figure did not go down well with a lot of Nigerians who argue that the standard is not in tandem with Nigeria’s economic reality where 99 per cent of students who graduate yearly are stranded because of lack of jobsbecause the government does not create establishments to absorb them leading to poverty rate at over 133 per cent.
“To measure unemployment rate, the government should start by measuring the number of graduates that are employed every year. It should also measure the number of establishments that are created every year,” they advised
They wondered why NBS chose the one-hour working methodology against the 20 hours and 40 hours working standards.
According to them, they alleged the Statistician General of the Federation, Prince Semiu Adeyemi Adeniran, is trying to curry favour from the Federal Government to gain a second term in office.
These and more are arguments that were canvassed by the stakeholders.
But Adeniran countered these claims, saying that the 20-hour or 40-hour working standards were old and archaic and must be discarded to align with the new world order.
“The unemployed – this appears to be the most controversial amongst the changes announced under this review. The new standard defines the unemployed as persons within the labour force, who within the reference period, (previous 7 days) did not work for pay or profit for a minimum of one hour. This is a significant departure from the old definition which used 20 hours as the benchmark. One question to ask here is this: similar to the case of persons above the age of 64 who are working, is it right to continue to disregard the contributions of those working from 1-19hours, who for one reason or the other, are perfectly satisfied with their situation. Can they be labelled unemployed? Particularly when they have indicated no desire or availability to take on more hours of work. Also, it is important to note that NBS is not saying that working one hour a week is enough for anyone to survive or live above the poverty line. One hour is only a benchmark. Furthermore, in the real sense, nobody works one hour a week and then sits down and does nothing else when there are opportunities for more hours of work. The statistics show that only 7.1 per cent of those working, work between 1 and 19 hours per week. So, one hour is just a benchmark and nothing more than that, as even persons working over 40 hours a week, also indicated availability for more working time, approximately 10.3 per cent. Hence, the emphasis here should be on the quality of work people do, and not the hourly benchmark” Adeniran, said.
However, ILO, who has been at the centre of the controversy confirmed that the methodology used in the survey is of international standard.
Throwing more light on the methodology, ILO Country Office (CO) Director, Ms. Vanessa Phala, said that the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) addressed the several shortfalls of the 13th ICLS,
The 19th ICLS came out with the resolution concerning statistics of work, employment, unemployment and labour underutilisation that revised the existing international standards used by countries to produce labour statistics.
“It is important to appreciate that the current labour force surveys conducted by NBS from 2022 to 2023 are based on international standards, in particular, the resolution adopted by the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in 2013.
“The 19th ICLS Resolution is the labour statistics standard which has defined for the first-time the term “work” in statistical terms. It has also defined different forms of work, including employment.
So far, the international standards for labour statistics in use by the NBS are contained in the resolution of statistics of the economically active population, employment, unemployment and underemployment and related guidelines, which had been in place since 1982 when the resolution was adopted by the 13th ICLS and were therefore seen as not adequately capturing anymore employment measures in the current economic contexts.
“To address several shortfalls of the 13th ICLS, the 19th ICLS came out with the resolution concerning statistics of work, employment, unemployment and labour underutilisation that revised the existing international standards used by countries to produce labour statistics.
“Moreover, the 19th ICLS resolution defines various concepts that can be used to identify the extent of labour underutilisation including: time-related underemployment; unemployment and potential labour force. As stated in the resolution, these concepts can be combined to produce different indicators of labour underutilisation in a view to complementing unemployment rate” ILO Country Director, said.
In the midst of this crisis generated by the report, a coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), represented by Chief Ogakwu Dominic, has pleaded with Nigerians to accept the report as it would help government plan and budget effectively.
“For us as civil society practitioners, statistics are not just numbers but presents the optics with which we score and adjudge the performance of those who have been saddled with the responsibility to look after government business and by extension the welfare of the Nigerian citizen.
“One thing is certain, numbers don’t lie and if we must get out of the current myriads of challenges confronting our republic and deliver on the dividends of democracy to the least Nigerian, we must see the NLFS (Nigeria Labour Force Survey) report as not just another routine exercise by an agency of government but as a strategic document for sustainable planning and budgeting with a view to achieving the promises as contained in the manifesto of the “Renewed Hope” Agenda of the President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu led administration and beyond.
“Certainly, statistics play a crucial role in the planning process by providing valuable insights and information for decision-making and it is my utmost belief that NLFS report will not fall short of the expectations of the millions of Nigerians who are eagerly waiting to get whispers of a renewed hope through the content of the document?” the CSOs explained.
A professor of statistics, University of Ibadan, and co-cordinator, UI Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistics (UI-LISA), Olusanya Olubusoye, said that the focus should be how many jobs were created; how many industries developed during the period under review.
“I don’t have doubt about the figure generated by NBS because they follow standard practice in terms of methodology, in terms of design and in terms of execution.
But where I differ is those who develop the basis identifying somebody employed or not employed. Is this the same measure that is used in developed countries? Most of these international bodies design methodologies for developing countries. The United States of America or the United Kingdom hardly emphasise on unemployment rate. Rather, they talk about the number of jobs that are created. So, if they are assessing any administration they look at how many jobs that have been created. The issue is that how many jobs that have been created and not actually about how many people are not working?
Jobs should be created in a higher proportion compared to the number of graduates or number of youths or of people in the population. That was how they watered down poverty rate too.
So, we also need to know how many jobs are lost. So, the interest should not be about unemployment rate because the definition itself is not helping us as a developing country. It doesn’t reflect the reality on ground. It doesn’t reflect the reality of our people. What we need is the government to tell us in the first quarter, how many jobs were created, how many industries came up, how many youths graduated and secured employment? Not to be using this highly aggregated and deficient definition which deviate from the reality of our environment” the professor, a former president of Nigerian Statistical Association, explained.
An economic analyst and a development economist, Odilim Enwegbara simply said that the figure was manipulated.
“The unemployment rate is not coming down. So, the figure is manipulated. The figure was actually manufactured,” he said.
Similarly, the convener and a passionate economy expert, Mr
Eze Onyekpere, said that the purpose of NBS data is to inform government on how well the (government) policies, laws and plans are doing in terms of creating employment for Nigeria and not others.
“They changed the methodology and the definition of unemployment. That’s what is responsible. For them anybody who works for one hour in seven days is qualified to be employed. One hour in seven days and under-employment is anybody who works less than 40 hours in a week or thereabout.
You could see that that changed the whole definition.
My major contention is that you won’t understand the purpose, the vision of the founding fathers. NBS is supposed to collect statistics and data that will be used by government in policy formulation and implementation. So, the whole idea of a job report is to give government the signal of how well these policies are performing in the country in terms of creating jobs because the goal of every government is full job prospect, a situation where every Nigerian is employed. So, the data should say how well we are doing? Are we creating enough jobs? Do we need more jobs?
Don’t tell the government that 95. 9 per cent of Nigerians are employed. What are you telling that government? You are giving the government a pat on the back. Can anybody in good conscience tell anybody that 95.9 per cent of Nigerians are employed?
Methodology should reflect purpose. The methodology should reflect the purpose of that work you are doing. It’s not of telling me the international standard. The international standard my foot. The purpose of NBS data is to inform government on how well their policies, laws and plans are doing in terms of creating employment for Nigeria. You use that data to change and think of how we can improve. How can somebody tell me of international standard. Knowledge is common sense. How can you tell me of international standard when young men and women around me are unemployed? Well, you can tell that to the marines” he noted.
President, Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), Dr James Ekerare Neminebor, simply said that the government is just trying to put things in place, including job creation. According to him, committees have just been formed and they are yet to kick off. So, for somebody to come up with unemployment figure at this material time is unacceptable and misleading.
Another economy expert and analyst as well as an economy teacher, Dr Moho Austin, peeved about the figure, said that the whole exercise is a joke taken too far.
“Last week, NBS reported that the unemployment rate was 4.1 per cent. The lowest in many years. Lower than the United States and most European countries. You should agree with me that it’s not possible. It’s a joke taken too far. Evidently, this is a mismatch to the reality on ground. And clearly the figure reported by NBS can in no way give a policy direction or intervention to the government in addressing the humongous level of poverty in the country. If the NBS is saying that unemployment is 4 per cent, the implication is that the vast majority of Nigerians are employed and there’s nothing to worry about. This can’t be true and nothing can be further from the truth. Being employed also means that people have income and that there’s no poverty in the country. But we do know that this is not true because early this year, the same NBS said that 133 million Nigerians are suffering from multi-dimensional poverty. In any case, what is the daily life of Nigeria today? Does it give credence to the NBS report? The NBS has said it used a different methodology to arrive at the current figure in line with International Labour Organisation’s standard of reporting. It’s more like rebasing the unemployment figure from those who do 20 hours of work in a week as against those who do one hour of work in a week. In a nutshell, if you are able to do one hour of work in a week, you are not considered unemployed. Again, the question is: how much is one hour of work worth? Can anyone feed himself with earnings from one hour of work a week even in the most advanced economies of the world not to talk of Nigeria? The unemployment figure as released by NBS is misleading if you ask me.
NBS is supposed to give data to government to enable it craft policy direction. This kind of report cannot in anyway help government in charting a policy framework that will lift Nigerians out of poverty. Rather, it creates a perception that all is well when the country is actually drifting on the precipice as a result of youth unemployment that has direct consequences on the level of insecurity and political instability that is besetting the country. The NBS as a matter of national interest should jettison this methodology. It’s not to the national interest. Unemployment is actually on the rise as a result of subsidy removal and the floating of the naira. Many companies are shutting down. Even multi national companies are finding the operating business in Nigeria hostile. GSK just closed shop few weeks ago after 51 years of doing business in Nigeria. These have direct consequences on unemployment. NBS report is a joke taken too far in the face of current realities” he said.