Nigeria’s economy must grow 10% to create 4.5m jobs yearly
Nigeria’s economy needs to grow between 7 to 10 percent to create 4.5 million annual formal jobs needed to keep unemployment in check, according to the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).
Wilson Erumebor, senior economist at NESG in a presentation said nine in 10 Nigerians are struggling to make ends meet, urging the government to “urgently” create a job and productivity agenda or risk jobless growth soaring to 30 percent.
“By 2030, Nigeria’s working age population is projected to rise to 168 million and to keep unemployment rate at current level, we estimated at the NESG that we have to create 27 million jobs in the next five years,” Erumebor said at a session themed ‘From Hustle to Decent Work: Unlocking Jobs and Productivity for Economic Transformation in Nigeria.’
Read also: Innovation alone will not secure Nigeria’s digital economy
“And that’s 4.5 million jobs every single year and if we succeed, our young population will be the agent of economic transformation and prosperity. Our economy has to grow faster. It has to grow in the range of 7 to 10 percent annually.”
The country’s economy grew at its fastest pace in five years to 4.23 percent in Q2 2025 but it’s expected to close at 3.4 percent, projections by the International Monetary Fund show. That growth might not be enough to create jobs that would engage a population estimated to reach 275 million by 2030 and 428 million in the next 25 years.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s unemployment rate as at the last time official data was published stood at 4.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024 with over 90 percent in the informal sector.
While the jobless rate seems low, Erumebor argued that many Nigerians are “overworked and underpaid”, thereby leaving the citizens trapped in vulnerable, low productivity jobs.
Data from the NESG report reveals that over 80 percent of Nigeria workers are in sectors and activities in low productivity. In other words, the least productive sectors employ the most workers in Nigeria.
According to the economist, the Information, Communication and Technology sector has high productivity but employs fewer people while trade and agriculture employs a larger part of the workforce but has very low productivity.
“This means that the kind of jobs that’ll lift people out of poverty are not being created in large numbers. It then means that productivity across our economy is very low, holding back growth and shared prosperity.”
Limited depth of Nigeria’s private sector which should power economic growth stalls productivity and by extension, employment opportunities, Erumebor said.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, many Nigerian states are the single largest employer of labour, a title that should be earned by the private sector.
NESG also points to skills mismatch as part of the root causes of low productivity, stressing that many Nigerians lack the technical and digital skills to access quality jobs.
Read also: Nigeria’s $1trn economy at stake if women remain locked out
Nigeria’s educational system also needs to improve to boost productivity. The NESG report found that while millions of students are out-of-school, those in school are not learning as they should as only 46 percent of children aged four to six years can name at least 10 letters.
According to Erumebor, sectors that drive economic growth does not drive jobs, revealing that the top five sectors that powered the country’s economic growth in 2023 only employ 1.5 percent of the workforce.
“Meanwhile, you have manufacturing, construction and a few others that have the capacity to absorb labour and create high productivity are struggling,” he said.
