A cross section of Nigerians
The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has revealed that at least
18,919 Nigerians lost their public sector jobs between October 2015 and
March 2016.
Although about 5,867 new public sector jobs were generated between
October and December 2015, the Bureau said about 10,155 jobs were lost
during the period in the public sector of the federal, state and local
governments.
According to Premium Times, this translates to a negative employment generation figure of -4,288.
Also, while about 5,726 jobs were created between January and March
2016 in the public sector, the Bureau said about 8,764 jobs were lost
during the period, with a negative employment generation figure of
-3.038 for the period.
The Bureau, which reported a sharp decline of 84.1 per cent in
total employment against the figure in the last quarter of 2015, said
only about 79,469 jobs were generated in the economy in the first three
months of 2016, against about 499,521 jobs created during the
corresponding period of 2015.
The agency said in its quarterly job creation survey in
collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, that the figure was
83.1 per cent lower than the 389,605 jobs created in the corresponding
period last year.
“This sharp decline in employment generation in the first
quarter of 2016 is strongly correlated to the weakening economic output
within the period, where the Nigerian economy recorded a negative growth
of -0.36 percent,” the statistics agency said.
An analysis of the jobs created for the quarter showed 21,477 came
from the formal sector, consisting formal professional services with
less than 10 employees.
About 61,026 jobs came from the informal sector in the first
quarter, made up of mainly low skill, low paying blue collar jobs in
agriculture, light manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade businesses.
The NBS said the drop by 27,246 in formal employment in the last
quarter of last year and 21,477 in the first quarter of 2016 across all
the economic activities was as a result of the slowing down of economic
activities in the wake of the economic recession.
With the economy actually in recession at the moment, following the
recent formal confirmation by the NBS, analysts say the employment
situation would likely worsen, except government took steps to spend on
strategic capital infrastructure to reflate the economy.
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The Lead director, Centre for Social Justice, CENSOJ, Eze
Onyekpere, said declining employment figures in an economy in recession
was not surprising, as firms are closing up and reducing their
workforce, in the face of declining gross domestic products (GDP) and
high inflation.
“Decline in employment is to be expected in a recession,” Mr. Onyekpere said. “With
companies’ profits declining, their retrenchment of workers, and not
hiring to replace them, the figure will keep going down.
“The challenge is not in the recession, but for government to
spend its way out of it. Not as Nigerians talk about, but quality
spending in a way to help regenerate the economy.
“Spending is not about borrowing to pay salaries of workers,
but spending on strategic capital investments and projects to improve
the ease of doing business, ensure availability of infrastructure, like
power, roads, works and housing, for people to run their businesses.”
The Nigeria Labour Congress President, Ayuba Wabba, said the
concern of the labour union was on how government could create new jobs
for young Nigerians who constitute the most affected population by the
crisis.
Mr. Wabba said the best way forward was for government to ensure manufacturers continue to access raw materials and produce.
Most manufacturers, he said, find it difficult to survive.
“Many of them have closed. They cannot afford the cost of raw
materials, because of the difficulty in accessing foreign exchange
(FOREX) and the pressure from the free fall of the Naira,” he said.
He said government must ensure FOREX was channelled to the
manufacturer’s to enable them import raw materials they cannot find in
Nigeria.
On the recession, he said the best way was for the government to
make money available in circulation to drive economic activities.
“Government can also establish modular refineries to ensure
money used for the importation of petroleum products would be saved and
used to develop the economy, by providing the infrastructure required to
drive productive economic activities to create jobs for the people,” he said.
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