1. PRESENTATION
The level of unemployment in Nigeria has gone a socially unacceptable level.
It is difficult to measure unemployment in Nigeria since a substantial part of the
economy is not monetized and only a small population of the labour force defends on
wages.
The table below shows the distribution of unemployment by education level (F.O.S,
1995).
Distribution of Unemployment by Education level percentage.
Education URBAN RURAL
Level
Dec 1990 Dec 1994 Dec 1990 Dec 1994
No 12. 2 16. 5 24. 6 14. 8
Schooling
Primary 22. 9 17. 2 27. 6 12. 3
School
Secondary 60. 9 71. 8 47. 8 68. 0
Post 4.0 4. 7 0.0 14. 9
Secondary
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source:- F.O.S ABSTRACT 1995, LAGOS

2. The spread of graduate employment into rural sectors should be a source of concern to
policy makers as this group of persons will eventually Migrate towards the urban centers.
We have for long time mistakably believed that education would create employment.
However, education merely enhance quality of employability production capacity of
labour force (Prof. S.H.O Egboh: Entrepreneurship Development for Employment and Wealth
Generation, 2009 ).
At about 5.3% annual growth rate, urbanization in Nigeria is one of the fastest in the
world and with a stagnant secondary sector, the urban unemployment is estimated at about
10.8% if the Secondary sector do grow efficiently to absorb the surge of labour force to the
urban or the rural areas sufficiently transformed to stem the rate of rural–urban drift.
The rate of urban unemployment could be become really unimaginable
The table below shows the rate of unemployment in Nigeria .
Nigeria unemployment rate
Percentage of labour force
Source: www. Tradingeconomic.com/national bureau of statistics