The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced that the Nigerian Labour Force Survey (NLFS), which has been postponed by two years, will be released in the first quarter of 2023.
The most recent unemployment report, which was published in the fourth quarter of 2020, showed a 33.3% unemployment rate and a 20.6% underemployment rate.
Just a few weeks ago, the Bureau announced that it would start collecting data on household consumption expenditure for the Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS).
Semiu Adeniran, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Statistics General of the Federation, made this announcement yesterday at the National Consultative Committee on Statistics (NCCS2nd )’s biannual meeting in Lagos, which had as its theme “The Direct Implication of Sectoral Statistics in Curbing Inflation.”
He said that when the two surveys—conducted in cooperation with the World Bank—were finished, they would offer comprehensive household data and insights on Nigeria’s labor and welfare conditions, which are undoubtedly two of the areas most impacted by inflation.
Detailed information on household consumption, education, health, employment, living conditions, assets, household enterprise, and other important non-financial wellbeing indicators, according to him, would be made available by the NLSS.
He explained that the NLFS is a strategic survey created to gather and analyze data on the nation’s labor market, including the widely recognized and anticipated headline unemployment and underemployment numbers.
While the rates of unemployment and underemployment are significant indicators of the number of people who are economically active, he claimed that the NLFS also contains a wealth of additional, equally interesting and significant data that provide helpful insight into the state of the Nigerian labor market.
He claims that these surveys, together with other data collection efforts made by the agency, will give the government the knowledge it needs to address the effects of inflation and other factors.
“There are two measures by which we measure poverty in the country; the monetary approach and deprivation approach. The monetary approach is the one we have been using over the years, which comes from the data we collected from NLSS.
“It is recently that Nigeria adopted the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index to look at income and other forms of poverty that come in deprivation in the areas of health, education, housing, environment and clean energy. These among others make people fall into poverty if they are depressed.”
“For the Nigerian Labour Force Survey it is being conducted with the World Bank. Before it is used to produce employment and unemployment and other labour market statistics in the country but because of the gaps that we usually have to funding and other logistics in producing regularly these surveys on quarterly basis, we have designed a new methodology with World Bank such that this survey will run for a period of 12 months and at intervals on quarterly basis, we will be coming up with results of unemployment, underemployment and other indicators, not in full details.”
“For instance, in each quarter, we are going to be having summary result for the country on unemployment, underemployment, people being unemployed for many years and skills acquisition of the unemployed on quarterly basis, but when we get at the 12th month, we are going to have a more comprehensive analysis of the survey, looking at the state, the urban and rural areas. The first report of this approach and new methodology will get the first quarter of March 2023,” he stated.
The necessity for accurate statistics is undeniable in every community and at all levels of government for well-informed decision- and policy-making, according to Dr. Kabiru Nakaura, chairman of the NBS Governing Board.
He asserted that in light of the enormous difficulties the NCCS faces in carrying out essential activities, it is necessary to reassess the committee’s strategy to make sure that the importance of data is not overlooked but rather given careful consideration.
The meeting, according to Tayo Oseni-Ope, director of the Lagos Bureau of Statistics in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, was to review the statistical programs of various agencies in order to prevent duplication, provide necessary advice and training, among other things, across the three tiers of government.
