The Minister of Budget and National Planning,
Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, on Thursday explained that although the unemployment figures
released recently by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated an
increase in the unemployment rate, it is not the same thing as job losses.
The minister said the increase in the unemployment
numbers was not because jobs have not been created by the President Muhammadu Buhari
administration, but was as a result of the shortfall in the rate of new job
creation opportunities vis-a-vis the rate of new entrants into the job market.
According to a statement by the Special Adviser on Media
and Communication to the minister, Mr. Akpandem James, Udoma said as its
generally known, employment growth usually slows down during a recession and
takes some time to recover.
However, he assured Nigerians that government is
working hard to ensure that many more jobs are created so that the rate of job
creation runs much faster than the rate of new entrants to the job market.
Fielding questions from journalists and members of
the public during the breakdown of the 2019 budget proposals in Abuja, Udoma
stated that an examination of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) numbers actually show that the Buhari
administration has a positive net job creation record of 1,640,398.
“This is exclusive of the 11.1 million persons that
the NBS classifies as people who do some form of work but are considered to
have worked too few hours to be officially considered as employed,” he added.
This, the minister added, means that many casual
workers in farms might be among the 11.1 million workers who the NBS
enumerators may have felt did not work for enough hours to be considered as
employed, adding that agriculture is an area in which the Buhari administration
has made massive strides.
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