The Assistant Director-General of Jobs and Social Protection Cluster, ILO, Mia Seppo, in a release, said, “The cost-of-living crisis is pushing more people into poverty, including working poverty. The most vulnerable workers include 200 million people living in absolute poverty and two billion in the informal economy, where they frequently lack legal rights or social protection.”
According to her, in low-income countries, employment is not expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels this year. “In those regions where unemployment is now below pre-crisis levels, our analysis shows this is mainly because of a shift into the informal economy, which probably postpones rather than resolves workers’ problems,” she added.
Meanwhile, Seppo called on Nigeria and other countries to speed up their actions in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 8 on Decent Work for All. A1ILO said SDG Goal 8, which brings together social, economic, and environmental targets, has an impact on all other Agenda 2030 goals.
She said, “Generative artificial intelligence that augments human creativity, overheating megacities, these things were once the stuff of science fiction, but today they are the technological, demographic, and climate-change-related forces reshaping the way we work.
“What we don’t know is whether these forces will change our world of work for better or worse. This uncertainty is increased because the changes are occurring at a time of enormous existing challenges.”
She urged countries to ensure that those changes lead the world to the more equitable, sustainable, prosperous, and peaceful future that UN member states committed to when they adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015.
“This will be among the key questions to be addressed at the SDG Summit in New York in September. This is where Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 plays a crucial role. SDG 8 seeks inclusive and sustainable economic growth and full and productive employment, in other words, decent work for all,” she explained. According to Seppo, it is the only SDG that brings together social, economic, and environmental targets.
“In that sense, it can be seen as a ‘multiplier goal’ of the entire sustainable development agenda, since it will have a positive impact on other goals if achieved.
In a globalised economy, developing countries cannot be expected to act alone. We need international solidarity if we want to make a practical difference. Building universal social protection systems is an example,” she asserted.
She noted that those could alleviate poverty, reduce vulnerability and inequalities, and help to manage conflicts and social tensions. Seppo maintained, “Meanwhile, to achieve this target, humanitarian assistance must be directed so that it supports social protection systems and reinforces state capacity.
However, she emphasised that a reorganised and rebalanced approach to globalisation was essential, adding that concerns about automation’s impact on job losses were valid.
She claimed that technological progress could also create new job opportunities in emerging markets.
“Furthermore, we must ensure that the benefits are felt by everyone along these supply chains.
“To bring all the components of this approach together we must have clear and transparent policies and actions and ensure that they are seen as fair. That is why the ILO is calling for a Global Coalition for Social Justice,” she noted.
Nigeria tops the list of countries with the highest rate of unemployment, according to the latest statistics released by the World of Statistics.
Nigeria led with 33.3 per cent, followed by another African country, South Africa 32.9 per cent, and Iran 15.55 per cent.
The lowest rate of unemployment, according to the report, were in countries like Qatar: 0.1 per cent, Cambodia: 0.36 per cent, and Niger 0.5 per cent.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 33.30 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 from 27.10 per cent in the second quarter of 2020.
Meanwhile, in a more recent report, a multinational consulting firm, KPMG, stated that the Nigerian unemployment rate had increased to 37.7per cent in 2022, and would further rise to 40.6per cent, due to the continuing inflow of job seekers into the job market.
The multinational consulting firm said unemployment would continue to be a challenge due to the slower-than-required economic growth, and the inability of the economy to absorb the 4-5 million new entrants into the Nigerian job market every year
The Centre for Social Justice recently, urged the National Bureau of Statistics to compile, and release the current unemployment data for the country.
CSJ, an advocate for fiscal transparency, accountability, and evidence-driven policy making and implementation, stated that the last time Nigeria’s unemployment data was released by the NBS was in the fourth quarter of 2020. It added that since then, updated information had been absent, an act it consider as negligence of duty.
The National Bureau of Statistics earlier said it would release new unemployment and employment figures for the country by May 2023. However, the national statistics body was yet to release the report.