Nigeria’s Economy Created 1.2m Jobs in 2013 -NBS

The Nigerian economy created a total of 1.163 million jobs within the 2013 fiscal year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said.

The jobs, according to the bureau in its latest job creation survey result released on Monday were created in the formal, informal and public sectors of the Nigerian economy.

A breakdown of the figure showed that the sum of 431,021 jobs were created in the first quarter of 2013.

For the second, the bureau said 221,054 jobs were created while the figure increased in the third and fourth quarters to 245,989 and 265,702 respectively.

Addressing journalists on Monday in Abuja on the outcome of the exercise, Dr Yemi Kale, statistician general of the Federation and chief executive of the NBS said the jobs were created as a result of business expansion, seasonal growth and the need to attract new skills.

“These reasons for employment generation point to a thriving business environment in the country and gives further credence to the economic growth indicators,” he said

Kale explained that contrary to views expressed in some quarters that jobs were not been created, majority of jobs had been created in the economy.

He said in order to feel the impact of jobs creation, the number of jobs created had to surpass significantly the jobs demanded.

He said, “Job creation is, no doubt, a pressing topic in Nigeria as stakeholders struggle with the fact that despite several years of impressive annual growth rates, unemployment and under employment remains relatively high.

“This doesn’t mean that jobs are not being created. The question is whether the jobs being created are enough to meet the demand for jobs which amount to an average of 1.8 million every year.

“Even if jobs being created matched jobs being demanded, there is still the problem of existing pool of millions unemployed.

“Thus, for any meaningful impact on jobs created, the number of jobs created had to surpass significantly the jobs demanded otherwise the impact of jobs being created will not be visibly felt and tis will lead to the understandable suggestion that no jobs are really being created.”

The NBS boss noted that the result of the job creation survey exercise conducted by the bureau revealed that the informal sector continues to lead the way in new employment generated in the economy.

For instance, he said in the second, third and fourth quarter of 2013, the informal sector contributed over 54 per cent of total employment.generated in the economy, making it the highest employer of labour in the economy.

He said, “A breakdown of the jobs created in the second quarter indicates that 80,412 jobs were created in the formal sector, 112,567 jobs in the informal sector and 28,075 in the public sector.

“The formal sector contributed 76,385 jobs to the total jobs generated in the third quarter of 2013, while the informal and public sectors generated 140,673 and 28,931 jobs respectively.

“In the fourth quarter, of the total 265,702 jobs, the informal sector contributed 101,597, while the informal and public sectors created 143,278 and 20,827 jobs respectively.”

The NBS boss gave a further analysis of the job creation survey stating for instance that the education sector recorded the highest number of 37,578 new employees in the second quarter.

This, according to him, was followed by manufacturing with 9,000 new employees.

The administrative and support service sector, he noted, however, recorded the lowest number of new employees.