Nigeria's Revamp Of Economic Indicators Sparks Debate

Three years ago, Nigeria's unemployment rate was officially at 33, among the highest on record. The latest figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics NBS in November show the rate of unemployment has since plummeted to 4.3.

This dramatic transformation is not because of any employment boom wrought by President Bola Tinubu since taking office 19 months ago. It is simply down to a change of formula by the statistics office.

In the past, the NBS only counted people aged between 15 and 64 years who worked at least 20 hours a week as employed. Now anyone 15 years and above who works "for pay or profit" is considered employed, according to International Labour Organization guidelines now applied by the statistics office.

Anyone 15 years and above who is available for a job but without work is now considered unemployed, unlike in the past, where only those between 15 and 64 years working less than 20 hours a week were considered as such. Individuals working between one and 39 hours while still ready for more work are considered underemployed in the past only those that worked between 20 and 39 hours while ready for more hours fell under this category.

These are among the reforms unfolding at the NBS under the leadership of Aderemi Adeniran, who was appointed the statistician general in 2022. Apart from jobs, the agency is also in the process of changing the way it calculates the inflation rate and the gross domestic product GDP.