The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has countered Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige’s claim of the World Bank disputing its method of gathering data for employment statistics.
Ngige who made the claim while receiving leadership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management(CIPM), had also said there would be a virtual meeting between the Federal Government and the World Bank to discuss modalities used by the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) in gathering data for employment statistics.
He said;
“There has been a little confusion there as to the accuracy of data generated by the NBS. So, we want to align everything tomorrow (Thursday).
“The World Bank says the NBS methodology doesn’t conform to the global standard, especially the ILO format of arriving at such Employment Index.”
However reacting to this via its official Twitter handle, the NBS said the World Bank denied making such claim. The Bureau said the World Bank and the economic advisory committee instead, affirmed its confidence, commendation, support and close working relationship with the agency.
The tweet read;
“The World Bank has denied making any such statement and rather together with the economic advisory committee affirmed its confidence, commendation, support and close working relationship with @nigerianstat. The World Bank can be contacted if in doubt.”
The latest data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on its website revealed that unemployment rate as of the end of 2020 rose to 33.3% from 27.1% recorded as of Q2 2020, indicating that about 23,187,389 (23.2 million) Nigerians remain unemployed.
