N-power’s 1m applications in 48hrs indicate Nigeria’s unaccounted unemployment numbers

More than one million applications were received in less than two days after the online portal for the recruitment of the third batch of N-power; a youth empowerment programme, was opened June 26, 2020.

While the job creation scheme, which comes with a monthly stipend of N30,000 ($98), will only absorb 400,000 unemployed graduates, the more than 600,000 applicants show the high volume of the country’s unaccounted unemployment numbers.

“Barely 48 hours after it was opened, the online portal for the recruitment of the third batch of N-power enrollees witnessed over 1,000,000 applications,” Bashir Ahmad, personal assistant on new media to President Muhammadu Buhari, said in a tweet on Monday.

Set up in 2016, the job creation and skills empowerment programme of the Federal Government, N-power, which the Federal Government says is designed to help young Nigerians acquire and develop life-long skills that will make them practical solution providers in their communities, has weaned off the first batch of 500,000 volunteers and plans to terminate its engagement with the second batch in August 2020.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s unemployment figures have remained unknown for almost two years as the last labour statistics report was published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in the third quarter of 2018.

Going by NBS calendar, the state-funded bureau has failed to publish Nigeria’s unemployment data at least three times since the last report of 2018.

A top executive from the statistics office told Businessday in March 2020 that the bureau had been unable to publish the data due to lack of funds.

“Not every report we publish requires funds or a lot of funds, so some can be easily published unlike the unemployment data that involve surveys and fieldwork,” the source said.

While NBS is scheduled to release Q1 and Q2 2020 labour statistics on August 31, 2020, the latest report by the bureau shows Nigeria’s jobless rate was at a record-high of 23.1 percent in Q3 2018. The country’s unemployment rate embarked on an upward spiral in 2015 after a decline to 6.4 percent a year earlier.

Labour force statistics are considered by economists as an important economic and social indicator used in the analysis, evaluation, and monitoring of the economy; the labour market, and a wide range of government policies.

Ayorinde Akinloye, an analyst at Lagos-based CSL Stockbrokers, says unemployment and job creation are one of the most important lagging indicators for an economy, as they explain how well hiring and job creation are following an economic downturn or upturn.

“Also, it gives a gauge of how strong the average consumer is. Not having this data limits such insight on economic activities as well as consumer strength,” Akinloye said.