Nigeria: quarterly youth unemployment rate

In the fourth quarter of 2020, 38.5 percent of the labor force aged 15 to 24 years in Nigeria was unemployed, showing an increase compared to the previous quarters. In the same period of time, the total unemployment rate in the country amounted to 17.5 percent. This figure was projected to increase further in the next years.

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.

Youth unemployment rate in Nigeria in selected quarters between the 1st quarter of 2018 and the 4th quarter of 2020

Characteristic	NEW Nigeria methodology	International methodology
Q4 2020	53.4%	38.5%
Q2 2020	40.8%	22.3%
Q3 2018	36.5%	16.5%
Q1 2018	38%	16.4%

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Release date

March 2021

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Region

Nigeria

Survey time period

Q1 2018 to Q4 2020

Age group

15-24 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)"

Figures taken from several publications.

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