In the third quarter of 2023, Nigeria witnessed a rise in its unemployment rate to 5.0 percent from 4.2 per cent in the previous quarter, as per the latest Labour Force Survey released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.

This is as experts have charged the government at the federal and state levels to create a conducive business operating environment to tackle rising unemployment in the country.

The report highlighted a decline in the labour force participation rate among the working-age population to 79.5 per cent in Q3 compared to 80.4 per cent in Q2.

Nigeria had an unprecedented unemployment rate of 33.3 percent in Q4 2020. However, it saw a decline to 4.1 percent in Q1 2023, following a change in methodology by the NBS.

The NBS data that was released on Monday showed that the employment-to-population ratio stood at 75.6 per cent in Q3, indicating a decrease of 1.5 per cent compared to Q2. The combined rate of unemployment and time-related underemployment (LU2) rose to 17.3 percent in Q3 from 15.5 percent in Q2.

Self-employment accounted for about 87.3 per cent of workers in Q3, while the proportion of workers in Wage Employment was 12.7 per cent.

Unemployment among individuals with post-secondary education reached 7.8 per cent in Q3, while youth unemployment (aged 15-24 years) stood at 8.6 percent, marking a 1.4 percent increase compared to Q2.