The International Monetary Fund, IMF, has disclosed that Nigeria needs to create five million jobs annually for the next 10 years to cover its unemployment gap.
This was contained in the fund’s report released on Monday.
The lender said creating that number of jobs will absorb the country’s projected 54 million new entrants in the labour force over the next decade.
The Fund also said the nation needs to embrace more open trade and good policies to rejuvenate growth.
Nigeria’s unemployment rate rose to 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, increasing from 23.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2018.
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The unemployment rate has continued to increase over a decade.
The dire unemployment situation, which some believe is more severe than reported, has been made worse by the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to the shutdown of businesses.
“Nigeria will need to create at least 5 million new jobs each year compared to nearly 2 million job losses each year on average in the last five years,” the IMF said in its Article IV report on Nigeria.
The IMF welcomed the idea of higher growth relying on labour-intensive manufacturing, light manufacturing and agro-processing.
The IMF proposed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) be used to tackle unemployment.