“Having reviewed the relevant texts of the resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population, employment, unemployment and underemployment (and) recognising the need to revise and broaden the existing standards in order to enable better statistical measurement of participation of all persons in all forms of work and in all sectors of the economy; of labour underutilization; and of interactions between different forms of work; as well as to provide guidelines on a wider set of measures than previously defined internationally, thereby calling attention to the usefulness of these standards to enhance the international comparability of the statistics, to their contribution to the measurement of decent work and of well-being of households and society in general, thereby supporting and facilitating the post-2015 development agenda, as well as to the achievement of gender justice, acknowledging that the relevance of measures of work in a given country will depend on the nature of its society, labour markets and all user needs, and that their implementation will therefore, to a certain extent, be determined by national circumstances, (hereby) adopts the following resolution in substitution for the resolutions of 1982 and of 2008.”
The quote above is an extract from the preamble to the Resolution of the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians concerning statistics of work, employment and labour underutilisation that advised the standards for labour market analysis. It was the premise that the National Bureau of Statistics based its August 24, 2023 released data that revealed that the unemployment rate in Nigeria had reduced to 4.1 percent in the first quarter 2023. This was a dramatic reduction to the rate of 35 percent (2022 rate), which many believe should realistically be above 40 per cent. According to the NBS, the new definition of an unemployed person is anyone within the labour force who within the previous seven days did not work for a minimum of one hour.
Relying on the Resolutions released in 2013, and since more than 26 African countries have adopted and used the analytical tools and definitions in conducting their labour force surveys, Nigeria needed to follow suit to declare that once you are able to find yourself somewhere to work for at least one hour, whether for pay or not in the last seven days, and notwithstanding whether such work is as a result of helping someone or putting your hands into something in order not to run crazy in an economy filled with over 133 million multi-dimensionally poor people, you are employed. What a measurement yardstick!
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By its definition, to work means any activity performed by persons of any sex and age to produce goods or to provide services for use by others or for own use, irrespective of legality, context and person status. Breaking it down, one is at work (and is fully employed) if he is engaged in own-use production work, engaged in unpaid trainee work, doing volunteer work (a non-compulsory activities performed without pay to produce goods or render services for others), or involve in other activities performed without pay to produce goods and services for others.
However, the adopted analytical tools for the measurement weren’t instructions cast in iron. Resolution 3 of the 19th ICLS counsels thus: each country should aim to develop its system of work statistics, including of the labour force, to provide an adequate information base for the various users of the statistics, taking account of specific national needs and circumstances”. However, it was Resolution 5 that persuasively advised the use of the analytical tool, just for the sake of international comparability. So, is Nigeria under compulsion to adopt the 19th ICSL Resolution? It is like the Statistician-General fails to consider Resolution 3 in using latest the methodology, but would rather Nigeria is also captured among countries that are using the analytical methodology canvassed through the 19th ICSL Resolutions.
Why would Nigeria wants to use the same yardstick with developed economies to measure unemployment with her own economy that is filled with a people already affected by poverty and tired of job hunting, a people already fed up with inability of government to create enabling environment for thriving economic activities, a people that have already given up on government, and regard the public sector as liabilities and wasters of resources, a people of mounting army of beggars, unsettled and bewildered, self-helping, criminally-inclined young workforce, a country whose vibrant professionals are emigrating in droves, a country with near-zero manufacturing sector, a country whose production capacity seemingly ended in the more than 40 years ago?
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It is not even enough to measure unemployment to understand the deficiencies in a labour market. Adriana Mata Greenwood of the ILO Bureau of Statistics also shares this view. In Nigeria, it is clear to a five years old child that not a few millions of people lack means of livelihood and the streets are not smiling. Nigeria’s economic environment and labour market situation is one of its kind that calls for unending studies.
It’s laughable that developed economies’ employment yardstick will be used to measure that of a country on life-support and one that is struggling very hard not to totally become a failed state. These developed economies have various benefit programmes such as social welfare payments to protect the employed against income losses by enabling unemployed workers to meet consumption needs. Any you want to use the same measurement tools in a very toxic economic environment where almost 70 per cent of the total population struggle to eat a meal per day? The fact remains that it will be foolhardy to sacrifice true representation of the situation, validity and usefulness for the sake of comparison with other countries.
Emmanuel is a business planning consultant and founder of Leacent Incorporated Trustees, a network of entrepreneurs and group of cooperatives. He works with a team of international consultants to conceptualise and plan agribusiness and housing projects. As a certified trainer authorised to use the International Labour Organisation’s enterprise development modules, he trains entrepreneurs and organises workshops and seminars for potential and practising entrepreneurs as well as business managers and cooperatives. He also speaks and facilitates at leadership and management workshops on invitation. His book, Business Planning Made Easy: Step by Step Guide On How To Turn Your Idea To Profitable Business is the latest of the books authored by him. Tel.: +234(0)9068602954 (call and sms), +234(0)8023257707 (whatsApp only).
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