A third of Nigerians are unemployed: Here’s why

SUFFERING OF THE NIGERIAN PEOPLE 

Ndubisi Nwokoma

Down To Earth | April 29, 2021

The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics recently published the country’s unemployment rate for the fourth quarter of 2020, reflecting a continued deterioration during the COVID-19 year. The unemployment rate for this period stood at 33.3 per cent. Ogechi Ekeanyanwu, from The Conversation Africa, asked Ndubisi Nwokoma, an economics professor, to provide the context. 

How is unemployment measured?

Unemployment is when people are ready, able and willing to work, but do not find work. By the International Labour Organisation definition, a person is employed when they work at least 40 hours a week. The working age is regarded as between 15 and 60. Currently, 33.3 per cent or 23.2 million of the about 70 million people who should be working in Nigeria are out of work. An acceptable level of unemployment would be 4 per cent-6 per cent.

Screwing with the Unemployment Statistics

UNEMPLOYMENT IN U.S. 

Dave Lindorff

Unemployment benefits application line at noon running for half a block out onto the sidewalk in Brooklyn, NY (photo by Tricia Wang 王圣捷 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Something is screwy about unemployment numbers coming out of Washington.

In late July, just before the end of the supplemental $600 weekly checks for people collecting unemployment benefits, the New York Times reported that 30 million were receiving those checks.

That’s 30 million laid-off workers who qualified for unemployment benefits, which is not everyone who was laid off, since many people who get work for a wage don’t qualify for unemployment compensation.

COVID-19 costs global economy 400 million full-time jobs, says ILO

A Journal of People report

Image Source: Pixabay

The COVID-19 pandemic is taking toll from the working classes. Latest data show the fact – the working people are the worst sufferers.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) forecasts: Global working hours shall plummet by 14 percent in the second quarter of 2020 as a result of the pandemic.

The ILO in an earlier projection said: A 10.7 percent fall in working hours, or 305 million job losses, for the period.

USA: As coronavirus rages official jobless numbers near 33 million

by Mark Gruenberg

People’s World | July 09, 2020

A health care worker works at a COVID-19 testing site sponsored by Community Heath of South Florida at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Clinica Campesina Health Center, during the coronavirus pandemic, July 6 in Homestead, Fla. Both the pandemic and the jobless rate in America are spiraling out of control. Lynne Sladky | AP

WASHINGTON—The official number of unemployed people neared 33 million in the week ending in the real Independence Day, July 4, as 1,399,699 million more jobless workers sought state benefits and 850,461 asked for federal-only $600 weekly jobless checks.

And in the week ending June 20, one of every four Puerto Ricans was jobless, as were 21% of Nevadans and Hawaiians. Six other states, plus the Virgin Islands had jobless rates above 15%, BLS said. The state-by-state jobless rates lag two weeks behind the numbers of people seeking unemployment aid.

COVID-19 Will Have a ‘Catastrophic’ Impact on Unemployment: IMF

teleSUR | June 24, 2020

People wait in a block-long line to pick up food at the Masbia of Flatbush food pantry in Brooklyn, New York on April 30 2020. | Photo: EFE

The COVID-19 crisis will have an even bigger negative impact on the global economy than initially thought, the IMF said 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic will have a “more negative impact” than expected on the world economy, which will also affect unemployment rates.

 

Back to work, or else: Trump administration tells states to pull unemployment benefits

by Mark Gruenberg

People’s World | May 15, 2020

President Donald Trump and Tony Stallings, vice president of integrated supply chain at Honeywell International Inc., right, interrogate a worker about his job during a tour of a Honeywell plant that manufactures personal protective equipment, May 5, 2020, in Phoenix, as Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows watch. | Evan Vucci / AP

WASHINGTON—GOP President Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia, and his #2 who runs the agency that oversees jobless benefits want employers to report—and states to bar benefits from—workers who fear returning to their old jobs because their employers won’t protect them against the coronavirus.

The memo, from John Pallasch, a GOP operative, an advocate for so-called charter schools and a former top Kentucky Employment Department official under right-wing GOP Gov. Matt Bevin, makes clear the intention is to deny jobless benefits to those jobless workers.

COVID-19 Pandemic: US Jobless Grew Nearly 3 Million Last Week

teleSUR | May 14, 2020

U.S. jobless claims climbed by nearly 3 million last week amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of initial jobless claims in the United States totaled nearly 3 million last week as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep the nation, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

In the week ending May 9, the number of Americans filing for U.S. unemployment benefits decreased by 195,000 from the prior week to 2,981,000, the sixth weekly decline in a row but higher than economists’ expectation for 2.5 million.

U.S.: The depression hits: As many as 50 million jobless says Trumka

by Mark Gruenberg

People’s World | May 08, 2020

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who says the federal government must guarantee pay for workers who have lost their jobs, says the real number of unemployed could be as high as 50 million. | AP

WASHINGTON—Crash.

That was the sound of the U.S. economy collapsing in April as the official unemployment rate skyrocketed from 4.4% in March to 14,7% last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. And that is an enormous undercount with many millions still unable to get their claims registered. Official totals of 20 million could be as high as 50 million, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Even the BLS says its figures are an undercount. Undercount.

“If the persons who were recorded as employed but ‘absent from work for other reasons’ had been classified as unemployed but on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been almost five percentage points higher,” BLS noted.

As US Economy Tanks, Study Finds Unemployment Numbers Likely Double Official Figure

by Alan Macleod

MintPress News | April 29, 2020

As COVID-19 rips through the United States, a record 26.5 million Americans have filed for jobless benefits since mid-March alone; numbers not seen since the height of the Great Depression. Tens of millions have been laid off, furloughed, or seen business dry up in a matter of weeks. “Prepare yourself,” said a worried Kevin Hasset, senior economic advisor to President Donald Trump, claiming that the economy “will be as bad as anything we’ve ever seen,” and predicting we will soon see unemployment levels of 20 percent and a 40 percent collapse in GDP.

U.S.: Unemployment claims rise to 22 million; women workers hit hardest

by Mark Gruenberg

People’s World | April 16, 2020

People line up outside the Utah Department of workforce Services Monday, April 13, 2020, in Salt Lake City, to file for unemployment. | Rick Bowmer / AP

WASHINGTON—Some 5.25 million more people filed initial claims for jobless benefits in the week ending April 11, the Labor Department reported on April 16. Those claims—added to the millions filed in March—raised total jobs lost to the coronavirus pandemic to 22 million, wiping out all gains in U.S. jobs since the end of the Great Recession a decade ago, several analysts pointed out.

The jobless rate shot up, too, even though those numbers lagged a week behind, BLS said. The 6.615 million new claims—9,000 more than the initial figures—from the week ending April 4 and the 6.687 million new claims at the end of March took the jobless rate to 8.2%, BLS added.