When shall these our leaders stop lying to us for reputation sake? How can a newly appointed Finance minister tell such a white lie. To me that seems like he has no solution to Nigerian unemployment situation, he is trying to reduce it on paper and not in reality. Unless he come back to tell us he made a mistake.

princekevo:

When shall this our leaders stop lying to us. How can a newly appointed Finance minister tell such a white lie. To me that seems like he has no solution to Nigerian unemployment situation, he is trying to reduce it in paper and not in reality. Unless he come to tell us he made a mistake.

That means xterra2 must loff the white lies.

xterra2:

it is safe to say i didnt say that exactly,Aganga and the bussiness day said so,
Notin to show from it?See they may be employed but earning 6,000 monthly (yes very poosible) or even less day (even more possible) but what do you want them to show seriously? Bently?
Which compaines were built to offer this million people jobs? i tink companies are not built industries are, but whateva companies like ABC transport for example,or other companies alike are getting some new cars and they employ drivers withough neccessary building companies or industries whatsoever,
THis is good news cut a cake to celebrate!

The stats are from the National Bureau of Statistics, and not from Aganga himself. So technically, he's not lying.
I tend to think it may be correct. We seem to always look at graduate unemployment as the yardstick for unemployment in Nigeria. Most graduates, who are not up to 20% of the population, are unemployed, so they would probably form the bulk of that figure, particularly in the urban areas.

AjanleKoko:

The stats are from the National Bureau of Statistics, and not from Aganga himself. So technically, he's not lying.
I tend to think it may be correct. We seem to always look at graduate unemployment as the yardstick for unemployment in Nigeria. Most graduates, who are not up to 20% of the population, are unemployed, so they would probably form the bulk of that figure, particularly in the urban areas.

how can you say this?
National Bureau of Statistics, when you don't even have an accurate census figure?
maybe you can make the argument clearer by stating your definition of unemployment?
That will be a good place to start.
Howver, i am stretched to see a definition that would accomodate that figure he quoted.

AjanleKoko:

The stats are from the National Bureau of Statistics, and not from Aganga himself. So technically, he's not lying.
I tend to think it may be correct. We seem to always look at graduate unemployment as the yardstick for unemployment in Nigeria. Most graduates, who are not up to 20% of the population, are unemployed, so they would probably form the bulk of that figure, particularly in the urban areas.

Is it only graduates that are unemployed? What about individuals that graduated donkey years ago, never found suitable employment, and are now employed in the underground economy? The stats from the National Bureau of statistics most likely does not include individuals employed in the underground economy so that must be flawed.

Minister Aganga must be high on something

Hmn

Including Ghost workers so 19.7% is ok

mbulela and Katsumoto,
I made that remark based on this story: http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11422:nigerias-unemployment-rate-rises-to-10m-&catid=85:national&Itemid=340

If Aganga is referring to the same stats as BusinessDay, then he's not lying.

As per my opinion, I base it on two things:

1. I get hundreds of requests for assistance, for employment, mostly from graduates.

2. I find that a lot of Nigerian non-graduates are employed, as labourers, shop attendants, petrol attendants, waiters/waitresses at fast food joints and other local restaurants, selling stuff in traffic, working in the markets as casual workers or traders, hawkers, etc. Even the scavengers at the dumpsite, as recently highlighted by BBC.
Are you referring to those people as 'unemployed'? In that case, what makes someone employed? A white-collar shirt and tie?

I find Katsumoto's statements on the 'underground economy' as interesting. It's a good thing I work in the consumer business. We use economic indices for our market planning, and we don't regard any of those people as members of an 'underground economy', we regard them as also contributing to the nation's GDP. So we factor them into our planning, after all they are also earning an income, and performing economic activities. Their customers are not ghosts, but you and me.
I would say, let us be in a position to assess the facts rather than making sentimental statements. An unemployed person in Nigeria in my view is someone who is not generating even 1 kobo of income, but is 100% dependent on others. I believe that's how it works elsewhere in the world.

AjanleKoko:

mbulela and Katsumoto,
I made that remark based on this story: http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11422:nigerias-unemployment-rate-rises-to-10m-&catid=85:national&Itemid=340

If Aganga is referring to the same stats as BusinessDay, then he's not lying.

As per my opinion, I base it on two things:

1. I get hundreds of requests for assistance, for employment, mostly from graduates.

2. I find that a lot of Nigerian non-graduates are employed, as labourers, shop attendants, petrol attendants, waiters/waitresses at fast food joints and other local restaurants, selling stuff in traffic, working in the markets as casual workers or traders, hawkers, etc. Even the scavengers at the dumpsite, as recently highlighted by BBC.
Are you referring to those people as 'unemployed'? In that case, what makes someone employed? A white-collar shirt and tie?

I find Katsumoto's statements on the 'underground economy' as interesting. It's a good thing I work in the consumer business. We use economic indices for our market planning, and we don't regard any of those people as members of an 'underground economy', we regard them as also contributing to the nation's GDP. So we factor them into our planning, after all they are also earning an income, and performing economic activities. Their customers are not ghosts, but you and me.
I would say, let us be in a position to assess the facts rather than making sentimental statements. An unemployed person in Nigeria in my view is someone who is not generating even 1 kobo of income, but is 100% dependent on others. I believe that's how it works elsewhere in the world.

Presumably you work for a corporate body and as such it makes sense to include everyone earning some income as employed for segmentation and targeting. The fact is, as far as government fiscal policy is concerned, they form part of the underground economy because even though they are generating income, they are doing so for themselves and not for the economy. Hence the term, underground economy. They do not pay taxes and their income is not part of GDP.

Morally, an electrical engineering graduate who is working as a street hawker can not be classed as employed as he is temporarily employed in an industry that does not contribute to GDP whilst he continues searching for a job. Underground workers are not taken into account in any economy including the southern european countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Spain has an unemployment of 19.7% and these includes temporary contract workers who do not have proper employment and do not contribute to Spain's GDP. I maintain that graduates who work as street hawkers, barbers, drivers, etc are unemployed for two reasons:
1. They rarely pay taxes
2. They do not accept their employment and like you mentioned, they continue to seek proper employment. They stop being unemployed when they are part of the mainstay economy.

Mind you, I am not talking about graduates who work for corporate bodies in undesirable professions, I am only refering to those that are not counted as tax payers.

dat man has lost touch with reality.
imagine speaking like an imbe?

pls d rate is 92% over 100.

see someone dat doesn't come out from his office or house telling us just imagine. telling us d unemployment rate.

we really don suffer

There is no sentiment about it, Ajanlekoko.
What do i have to gain in sentimentalizing the issue?
If your company factors in the underground economy that cannot be ascertained, how do you derive the figures for your market planning?
my problem is not just the figure Aganga is quoting, my problem is the statistics is horribly unreliable for him or anyone to quote figures on such things.

also, being a graduate s not a prerequisite for employment

we all know enough people who could not finish school for one reason or another who are looking for work

aganga is making the mistake so many people coming from obodo oyibo make - he is assuming that he is working with competent people who can be relied upon to provide accurate information.

hope he learns from this gaffe

Katsumoto:

Presumably you work for a corporate body and as such it makes sense to include everyone earning some income as employed for segmentation and targeting. The fact is, as far as government fiscal policy is concerned, they form part of the underground economy because even though they are generating income, they are doing so for themselves and not for the economy. Hence the term, underground economy. They do not pay taxes and their income is not part of GDP.

Morally, an electrical engineering graduate who is working as a street hawker can not be classed as employed as he is temporarily employed in an industry that does not contribute to GDP whilst he continues searching for a job. Underground workers are not taken into account in any economy including the southern european countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Spain has an unemployment of 19.7% and these includes temporary contract workers who do not have proper employment and do not contribute to Spain's GDP. I maintain that graduates who work as street hawkers, barbers, drivers, etc are unemployed for two reasons:
1. They rarely pay taxes
2. They do not accept their employment and like you mentioned, they continue to seek proper employment. They stop being unemployed when they are part of the mainstay economy.

Mind you, I am not talking about graduates who work for corporate bodies in undesirable professions, I am only refering to those that are not counted as tax payers.

Katsumoto,
It appears you didn't really read my post, or understand it.
Pls let's talk with some kind of scientific interpretation of the facts, and not countryman sentiments. You seem to be lumping a lot of things together in your thinking: graduate employment, acceptance or otherwise of current employment, and government fiscal planning. I'll try to put things in perspective for you.

I work in telecoms. We consider ourselves to be selling to consumers, so we use market data to understand the different strata in the economy, and what their status of earning/spending power actually is. So I get to look at a lot of these figures, from various international sources, asides from the National Bureau of Statistics. Most of those bodies conduct extensive market research before they publish the figures. What we need to understand is how they arrive at it, and what their thinking is. Whether we agree or not is beside the point. But what I'm telling you is, the figures are as close to accurate as can be. The problem is what we have defined in our minds as employment, and who's doing the definition.

A lot of those statistics take into account the current status of the individual, not whether they accept their employment or not. If I am an electrical engineering graduate currently selling gala, it means I am employed as a gala seller, and my education has no bearing on my current income.

If I am selling gala in Lagos, I would probably be classified by market research as something like 'urban poor' based on my income, and 'informal sector, self-employed' based on my vocation. That is, if we are looking at employment. My qualifications are not in any way connected to my current or possible future employment, and no connection can be made unless it exists. The electrical engineering question would be relevant in another study that looks at, say, people who studied electrical engineering but are working in another sector.

As per government fiscal planning (taxation, provision of amenities, etc), I'm not sure what exactly you mean. In the UK, I guess a lot of illegal immigrants are not paying tax, but are earning money from tax-paying businesses one way or the other. It doesn't mean that the government does not know they exist, or does not factor them into their fiscal planning. They also contribute to the economy by their activities. It's not different in Nigeria, I guess. Of course we have our own problems (corruption, bad investment climate, etc), but it doesn't necessarily change the dynamics.

Would you say that the Mr Biggs Cleaner is unemployed? or the Mallam selling recharge cards outside Mr Biggs? Would like to know your thoughts.

mbulela:

There is no sentiment about it, Ajanlekoko.
What do i have to gain in sentimentalizing the issue?
If your company factors in the underground economy that cannot be ascertained, how do you derive the figures for your market planning?
my problem is not just the figure Aganga is quoting, my problem is the statistics is horribly unreliable for him or anyone to quote figures on such things.

Who told you that the undergound economy cannot be ascertained? The size of that segment is very much known to every player, including government.
Did you see the BBC documentary? Did you watch the section about the cow market? Who are the customers buying the cows, as well as the cow dung and blood used for chicken feed?

it cannot be 19.7 percent. where i work, we used to employ more than 1000 youth corpers every year. once their service year is over, maybe like 2 get a job. whats 19.7 percent. the guy's goofing. he's working on false information. if its 19.7% then i wouldn't be feeling bad for our youth corpers. the remaining 19.7% can easily get themselves involved in something. then there won't be unemployment.

abeg. this is disturbing. how can the govt. be working on such an erroneous data.

wazobia-ng:

it cannot be 19.7 percent. where i work, we used to employ more than 1000 youth corpers every year. once their service year is over, maybe like 2 get a job. whats 19.7 percent. the guy's goofing. he's working on false information. if its 19.7% then i wouldn't be feeling bad for our youth corpers. the remaining 19.7% can easily get themselves involved in something. then there won't be unemployment.

abeg. this is disturbing. how can the govt. be working on such an erroneous data.

I would have agreed, but for two factors:

1. Where you work is not representative of the whole of Nigeria, and it doesn't span all the sectors of the economy.

2. All employable Nigerians, as well as all employed or unemployed Nigerians, are not graduates. Only a small fraction of the labour force are graduates.

I would still say that our picture is mostly distorted by graduate unemployment, particularly in the urban areas. If you expand your sample size, then you might see a different picture.

Unemployment rate? Kai is almost 85%

The statistics were not right

Weree-Minister !

I dont need to ask you where your

data is from because i know you are

not in your right sense.

AjanleKoko:

The stats are from the National Bureau of Statistics, and not from Aganga himself. So technically, he's not lying.
I tend to think it may be correct. We seem to always look at graduate unemployment as the yardstick for unemployment in Nigeria. Most graduates, who are not up to 20% of the population, are unemployed, so they would probably form the bulk of that figure, particularly in the urban areas.

a bit of truth here

Katsumoto:

Presumably you work for a corporate body and as such it makes sense to include everyone earning some income as employed for segmentation and targeting. The fact is, as far as government fiscal policy is concerned, they form part of the underground economy because even though they are generating income, they are doing so for themselves and not for the economy. Hence the term, underground economy. They do not pay taxes and their income is not part of GDP.

Morally, an electrical engineering graduate who is working as a street hawker can not be classed as employed as he is temporarily employed in an industry that does not contribute to GDP whilst he continues searching for a job. Underground workers are not taken into account in any economy including the southern european countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Spain has an unemployment of 19.7% and these includes temporary contract workers who do not have proper employment and do not contribute to Spain's GDP. I maintain that graduates who work as street hawkers, barbers, drivers, etc are unemployed for two reasons:
1. They rarely pay taxes
2. They do not accept their employment and like you mentioned, they continue to seek proper employment. They stop being unemployed when they are part of the mainstay economy.

Mind you, I am not talking about graduates who work for corporate bodies in undesirable professions, I am only refering to those that are not counted as tax payers.

yes it is true,
The 19.7% can be believed , Like i said before they may be employed but earning around 5,000 monthly or 6,000 or 7,000 monthly which as a reason it they may still suffer and they may not contribute to our economy in whatsoever but they are employed i-thats what we are debating, Being employed does not mean you being rich,
I think taganga is correct

where is the employed 80%, i thought it is the reverse

He is absolutely right, on the basis of counting armed men, thieves, yahoo boys, drug dealers, smugglers, hired killers, beggars e.t.c, as employed citizens.

To end this discussion and the falacies bedevilling Nigeria,,,Ishall make a quick reference to what an official of Nigeria had said about the unemployment issue in the last 2 years,,Knowing fully well the situation of unemployment have taken worse situation.
Minister for youth and productivity said as at Sunday, 20 Jul 2008  that over 65Million Nigerian youths are unemployed,,,check the link and read   http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20080720155031

Moreso this is wolrd bank report on Nigeria unemployment,,,

http://changenigeriaproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=165:cnps-position-on-youth-sport-and-culture-development&catid=91:CNP+Position

Like someone rightly said above,,a country that does not have accurate census data can not even speculate anything as regards unemployment,,,Some Nigerian officials have publicly stated that Nigeri's population is between 150Million and 160Million for many years,,,,My thinking is that Nigeria is very close to 200Million people,,,,

xterra2:

a bit of truth here

yes it is true,
The 19.7% can be believed , Like i said before they may be employed but earning around 5,000 monthly or 6,000 or 7,000 monthly which as a reason it they may still suffer and they may not contribute to our economy in whatsoever but they are employed i-thats what we are debating, Being employed does not mean you being rich,
I think taganga is correct

How do you reason my friend? are you saying that if the Government proposal of paying unemployed graduates #15,000 monthly sails through,,,all those who benefits from it would automatically be employed? Or in USA ,,whereby once you loose ur job and you file for unemployment benefits ,,you start getting $500 every week,,then U re employed?
Such a dumb analogy,,

xterra2:

a bit of truth here

yes it is true,
The 19.7% can be believed , Like i said before they may be employed but earning around 5,000 monthly or 6,000 or 7,000 monthly which as a reason it they may still suffer and they may not contribute to our economy in whatsoever but they are employed i-thats what we are debating, Being employed does not mean you being rich,
I think taganga is correct

Can the people u referred to as "employed" who earn 5-7000 monthly support anyone besides themselves.

REAL TRUTH:

To end this discussion and the falacies bedevilling Nigeria,,,Ishall make a quick reference to what an official of Nigeria had said about the unemployment issue in the last 2 years,,Knowing fully well the situation of unemployment have taken worse situation.
Minister for youth and productivity said as at Sunday, 20 Jul 2008  that over 65Million Nigerian youths are unemployed,,,check the link and read   http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20080720155031

Moreso this is wolrd bank report on Nigeria unemployment,,,

http://changenigeriaproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=165:cnps-position-on-youth-sport-and-culture-development&catid=91:CNP+Position

Like someone rightly said above,,a country that does not have accurate census data can not even speculate anything as regards unemployment,,,Some Nigerian officials have publicly stated that Nigeri's population is between 150Million and 160Million for many years,,,,My thinking is that Nigeria is very close to 200Million people,,,,

Thats a good point
If we use govt presumed figures to calculate, Nigeria's population is 150 million (intercensus figures)
Aganga says the entire labour force is just over 50 million people ( abt 33% of the total popln) and these are those aged between 15-64
Average life expectancy in Nigeria as at 2008 is 48 yrs.
So if we assume that 5% of the population are those retired over 64 years.
It goes to follow that the remaining 63% are Nigerian children 14 years and below, disabled individuals, home keepers and the students , about 94.5 million dependent individuals

We have a lot more to worry abt than the employment rate. Nigerian bureau of statistics should get a better hold of their statistics b4 they attempt to give the press insight on the nigerian economic situation

katsumoto is very right.
sorry, but ajanlekoko, you got it wrong today.
it is true everybody knows that 'underground economy' exists. it is however not used when calculating figures for GDP. a business(your telecom company, for example), could use this when planning. but not a govt as they do not pay taxes. no advanced country uses it.

the figure can NOT be less than 80%.
but i am not surprised. about 10 years ago (when i was a young graduate) a PHD holder (new from america, can't remember his name)  in charge of economy planning in abuja claimed on live TV that people 'are doing fine as you can see from how expensive the ties men wear are'.
i mean this from a PHD holder from an advanced economy.

there are no accurate figures so let not deceive ourselves
we do not have a social security system in nigeria so how
can they be giving any credible un-employment figures,

ajanlekoko can easily google for facts on what he's talking about.

i knew this aganga would not be different anyway.
is not nigerian at the end of the day?
or operating among politicians?
he stands no chance of doing anything credible.

xterra2:

a bit of truth here

yes it is true,
The 19.7% can be believed , Like i said before they may be employed but earning around 5,000 monthly or 6,000 or 7,000 monthly which as a reason it they may still suffer and they may not contribute to our economy in whatsoever but they are employed i-thats what we are debating, Being employed does not mean you being rich,
I think taganga is correct

Na wa for you.oo my guy. I think you have to check first what it means to be unemployed, before you and your finance minister start including pure water and Gala hawkers as being employed. I tell you most of those guys earn more than the amount you put there per month. So are we gonna count them as being employed?

I have said it before that our leaders knows no shame anymore, so we are not suprised when a person in the position of a minister can tell such a white lies. He jst ended up making himself an international fool to the world who knows that is big lie. No wonder they do not even take our government seriouse nor respect them anymore at the international levels.

ola olabiy:

ajanlekoko can easily google for facts on what he's talking about.

Correct.
I recommend you all visit nigerianstat.gov.ng, rather than making intuitive remarks.
Because I work with data in real life, I don't make any assertions based on what I feel. When I read the ThisDay story, I did a little bit of research, looked at planning data I have, and came to a few conclusions.
Since we're not winning any prizes here, there's no right and wrong, the rest is left for government I guess.

Mind you, your comment that the underground economy is not factored in by any government is not correct. A good example is unbanked activity. There are government estimates, documented, on the level of liquidity present outside the formal sector. They factor it into the inflation rate.
See from http://www.cenbank.org/Rates/rateshome.asp, quoted on inflation rates:

Inflation measures changes in the level of retail prices paid by consumers. The retail prices are captured by the consumer price index (CPI). The various inflation rates are computed using the May 2003 based composite CPI aggregated from the rural and urban CPIs. Two inflation rates per item are indicated on the table based on two different methods of computation, namely annualized change (year on change) and the 12-month moving average (12 months average change)

REAL TRUTH:

How do you reason my friend? are you saying that if the Government proposal of paying unemployed graduates #15,000 monthly sails through,,,all those who benefits from it would automatically be employed? Or in USA ,,whereby once you loose your job and you file for unemployment benefits ,,you start getting $500 every week,,then U re employed?
Such a dumb analogy,,

How do you reason my friend? are you saying that if the Government proposal of paying unemployed graduates #15,000 monthly sails through,,,all those who benefits from it would automatically be employed?
Well i readon with facts and umm we are not yet in the 15,000 monthly shit and we were talking bout that not a dumb anology afterall

Double-en:

Can the people u referred to as "employed" who earn 5-7000 monthly support anyone besides themselves.

Thats a good point
If we use govt presumed figures to calculate, Nigeria's population is 150 million (intercensus figures)
Aganga says the entire labour force is just over 50 million people ( abt 33% of the total popln) and these are those aged between 15-64
Average life expectancy in Nigeria as at 2008 is 48 yrs.
So if we assume that 5% of the population are those retired over 64 years.
It goes to follow that the remaining 63% are Nigerian children 14 years and below, disabled individuals, home keepers and the students , about 94.5 million dependent individuals

We have a lot more to worry abt than the employment rate. Nigerian bureau of statistics should get a better hold of their statistics b4 they attempt to give the press insight on the nigerian economic situation

Can the people u referred to as "employed" who earn 5-7000 monthly support anyone besides themselves.
Well if they cant support any body beside themselves thats their problem but as long as they as employed it dosent matter, isnt that what we are arguing bout?