Nigeria’s Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, has said Nigeria’s unemployment rate may hit 33.5 percent by 2020.
Declaring open a two-day workshop on “Breaking the Resilience of High Unemployment Rate in the Country”, on Thursday in Abuja, the minister lamented that the rapid increase in unemployment in the country was becoming quite alarming, noting that the current high unemployment rate of 23.1 percent, and underemployment of 16.6 percent released by the National Bureau Statistics (NBS) in its 2019 report was unacceptable.
“It is a worrisome status as the global poverty capital (World Bank, 2018); and concomitant high prevalence rate of crimes and criminality, including mass murders, insurgency, militancy, armed robbery, kidnappings and drug abuse, among others.
“As if this situation is not scary enough, it is projected that the unemployment rate for this country will reach 33.5 percent by 2020, with consequences that are better imagined, if the trend is not urgently reversed,”’ he said.
The minister, however, noted that Nigeria has not been resting on its oars over the years in terms of efforts to curb the unemployment problem.
Local media reports on Friday quoted the minister as saying that the various government social intervention programmes targeted at reducing youth unemployment and eradicating poverty had been implemented by different administrations since independence in 1960.
GIK/APA