Ex-NBS boss Kale yawns, insists 4.1% rate ‘won’t help’ policymakers
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Yemi Kale, former federal Statistician General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has disclosed how he resisted for 10 years the urge to change the methodology of unemployment data gathering during his tenure.
He spoke on the backdrop of the latest NBS data that puts unemployment rate at 4.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 (Q1 2023), down from 5.3 per cent in Q4 2022 and 33.3 per cent in Q4 2020.
Kale explained on Arise Television that when he was at the NBS, the committee that reviewed the minimum work hours to count as employment felt one hour did not make sense because income generated in that time frame was not necessarily livable.
In his view, income from 20 hours of work in Nigeria would equate to that made from working one hour in the United States, stressing the most important point of data is to give policymakers the tools to understand problems, proffer solutions, and monitor the impact of those solutions.
Kale explained: “This is why I resisted (to change the unemployment-gathering methodology) for 10 years because it did not make any sense in terms of providing the information that our policymakers need.
“So the 20 hours was set because the committee that was set up, which included the ILO [International Labour Organisation], presented their findings and they decided that one hour did not make sense because the income you will generate on an average from one hour’s work was not going to work.
“The 20 hours was decided on because it was agreed that if you work for that duration, you might be able to generate enough income that might sort of equate to what working one hour in the US is. Then you have a bit more comparison.”
Kale insisted unemployment figures from the NBS had always been in line with the international benchmark, and in many of the countries that pushed for this new standard, one hour of work made sense.
What the ILO has set is “a base guideline” which countries can tweak around to suit whatever their needs are, he clarified.
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20 hours’ employment set as benchmark
Before 20 hours was set as the benchmark under his watch, Kale recounted, the NBS defined employment as anything above 40 hours because Nigerian policymakers at the time were promising Nigerians full-time employment and needed to know if they were performing considering that, per The PUNCH.
“If the policy and data are to match, policymakers need to come out to say that all they are promising Nigerians is one hour of employment, then the methodology works.
“But if the methodology is focused on one hour and policymakers are trying to look for full-time employment, the data won’t help them. And is only there for textbooks, researchers, and international comparison, and there is nothing wrong with that. But policymakers can’t use.
“And I must repeat that the most important use of data is to provide information for policy not for international comparison, [even though] international comparison is good.
“Do your international comparison but ensure that what you produce is of use. The 4.1 per cent unemployment rate is telling policymakers that Nigeria does not have an unemployment problem.
‘New methodology internationally accepted’, NBS insists
NBS Communications and Public Relations Wakili Ibrahim insisted the new methodology is in line with international standards.
He said there are some Nigerians who earn from working for just one hour, and they need to be captured in the data.
“The new methodology is internationally accepted. All our neighbouring countries in Africa are using the new methodology of one hour. When he [Kale] was there it was 40 hours. Ask him why it was changed from 40 to 20 hours during his own time. Now, it is one hour,” Ibrahim added.
“The world is changing. In high-tech countries, if you work for one hour, you can earn what somebody in a bank cannot earn in one year because of IT.
“Look at lecturers; a lecturer can do a lecture for one or two hours, and they will pay him about N200,000 or N300,000 in one or two hours. So, what is the basis of ignoring those ones?
“It is the dynamic world that informed ILO and NBS to adopt this method to capture these people that spend one hour. Otherwise, they will be left out when you use 20 hours as the minimum hour. It is not the question of NBS but the question of the changing world.”
“In my 30 years of service, he [Kale] is the worst ever, and the youngest served Statistician General we ever had. Everything was crippled, not even light in the office. The money the government spent on NBS, we did not see anything.”
Ibrahim alleged Kale was not ready to leave after 10 years but was forced out, which likely triggered his comment against the NBS.