Nigeria has added another point to its list of infamous world titles after being named as the country with the highest unemployment rate in the world. It already holds the unenviable record of being the “poverty capital of the world.”
The latest black mark was revealed in a fresh report on unemployment rates across the globe by the World of Statistics. According to the report released last week, the percentage of people unemployed in Nigeria stands at a staggering 33.3 per cent, placing it top of the pile ahead of South Africa which came second with 32.9 percent unemployment rate.
Other countries that make the top 10 in terms of redundancy include third placed Bosnia and Herzegovina (29.28 per cent), Iraq (15.55 per cent), Afghanistan (13.3 per cent), Spain (13.26 per cent), Greece (11.2 per cent), Colombia (10.7 per cent), Ukraine (10.6 per cent) and 10th placed Turkey (10.2 per cent).
This latest blemish is coming on the heels of Nigeria being given the awful distinction of the poverty capital of the world in 2016 by World Bank which meant the West African nation overtook India as the country with the most extreme poor people in the world. India has a population seven times larger than Nigeria’s.
And despite the pledge made by former President Muhammadu Buhari on June 12, 2019, to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within 10 years, sadly, the nation has held on to the unwanted title. According to a 2023 report by the World Poverty Clock, 71 million people are living in extreme poverty with a total of 133 million people classed as multidimensionally poor, according to National Bureau of Statistics’ data.
Incidentally, Nigeria’s northern neighbour, Niger, has one of the lowest unemployment percentages in the world at 0.5 per cent. Then Asian nation of Cambodia has an even lower percentage of 0.36 per cent, while 2022 World Cup host, Qatar, has the lowest unemployment rate in the world at 0.1 per cent.
And in another development, Nigeria is ranked the sixth most populous nation in the world, with an estimated population of 223,793,955. The world’s most populous black nation was supposed to have counted her population for the first time in over 17 years between March 29 and April 2 this year but it was, however, cancelled at the last minute by government.
A new date is yet to be announced. India leads the way after toppling former number one, China in April, with her population of 1,428,598,765; China has 1,425,672,868 while the United States is third with 339,992,663 people. In fourth place is the world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia (277,529,799), while in fifth place is another predominantly Muslim nation, Pakistan (240,475,940).
The largest nation is South America, Brazil is seventh with a population of 216,419,321, Bangladesh (172,950,908) is eighth, ninth is Russia (144,445,025) while Central American nation, Mexico (128,453,827), is 10th. The Vatican City, a city- state surrounded by Rome, Italy, which is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, has the smallest population in the world with just 518.
