Nigeria: quarterly unemployment rate, by quarter

In the fourth of 2020, the unemployment rate in Nigeria reached 33.28 percent. Between 2015 and 2020, the unemployment rate grew. In particular, in 2017 the unemployment rate registered the fastest growth, increasing by about six percentage points during the year. However, this data were calculated according to the Nigerian methodology. Based on the most common international methodology, the unemployment rate in Nigeria stood at 17.5 percent.
The NEW Nigeria methodology defines as unemployed labor force who did not work at all or worked for less than 20 hours a week. The international definition, instead, include people aged 15 years to 64 years old who were available for work, actively seeking work, but were unable to find work.

Unemployment rate in Nigeria in selected quarter between the 1st quarter of 2015 and the 4th quarter of 2020

Characteristic	Share of unemployed individuals
Q4 2020	33.28%
Q2 2020	27.1%
Q3 2018	23.13%
Q2 2018	22.73%
Q1 2018	21.83%
Q4 2017	20.42%
Q3 2017	18.8%
Q2 2017	16.18%
Q1 2017	14.44%
Q4 2016	14.23%
Q3 2016	13.88%
Q2 2016	13.32%
Q1 2016	12.09%
Q4 2015	10.44%
Q3 2015	9.9%
Q2 2015	8.19%
Q1 2015	7.54%

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Release date

March 2021

More information

Region

Nigeria

Survey time period

Q1 2015 to Q4 2020

Age group

15-64 years

Supplementary notes

The source adds the following information: "[...] all countries however use the International Labour Organization's (ILO) definition, or a variant of it to compute unemployment. The ILO definition covers persons aged 15–64 who during the reference period (which is usually the week preceding the time the survey is administered) were available for work, actively seeking work, but were unable to find work.
The Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics, like most countries in the world, uses a variant of the ILO definition such that the unemployment is the proportion of those in the labour force (not in the entire economic active population, nor the entire Nigerian population) who were actively looking for work but could not find work for at least 20 hours during the reference period to the total currently active (labour force) population. Accordingly, you are unemployed if you did absolutely nothing at all or did something but for less than 20 hours during the reference week.
Hence, the unemployment rate is calculated as a percentage of the number of unemployed persons in the labour force:
Unemployment Rate=100 × (Unemployed Population)/(Labor Force Population)"

Data from Q4 2018 to Q1 2020 not available.

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