The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, as many businesses shut down or severely curtailed operations to try to limit the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
The Labor Department said 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs, wiping out a decade of employment gains in a single month.
Only in February, the unemployment rate was at a historic low of 3.5 percent, showing the extent of the economic devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The unemployment rate in April jumped to a record 18.9 percent for Hispanics, 16.7 percent for African Americans, 14.5 percent for Asians and 14.2 percent for whites.
The unprecedented rate of job losses in the US should be a source of concern in Nigeria for it is where the bulk of its diaspora remittances come from.
The Nigerian diaspora in the United States transferred about $6.2 billion back home in 2017, making this U.S.-based population Nigeria’s largest source of remittance inflows.
That’s 28 percent of the $22 billion of total remittance inflows from Nigerians in the diaspora for that year. The United Kingdom, the second largest source of diaspora remittances into the country, accounted for 18.6 percent at $4.1 billion.
The US is also home to the largest number of Nigerian emigrants, accounting for 22.6 percent of the total emigrants from Nigeria in the diaspora.
As of 2017, there were about 348,000 Nigerian immigrants living in the U.S., according to data from the Pew Research Institute, making Nigeria the top birthplace among African immigrants in the country.
That figure means remittance per capita from the US to Nigeria was roughly $17,816 per emigrant.
Nigerians in the US are also some of the most educated groups in the country.
As of 2016, around six-in-ten black Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. (59%) had a bachelor’s degree or more education – a share roughly double that of the overall American population.
According to data from the Migration Policy Institute, the Nigerian diaspora is the best educated of the 15 groups in the Rockefeller Foundation- Aspen Institute Diaspora Program (RAD) analysis.
A greater share of the Nigerian first and second generation earned undergraduate degrees than the U.S. population overall (37 percent versus 20 percent), and members of this population are more than twice as likely to have secured an advanced degree (29 percent versus 11 percent).
Members of the Nigerian diaspora are also substantially more likely than the general U.S. population to be in the labor force and to work in professional or managerial occupations.
Having established the strenght of the Nigerian diaspora in the US, the record job losses in the US is likely to affect diaspora inflows into Nigeria.
If Nigerians working in the US were to lose their jobs, it affects their incomes and reduces the amount they can afford to send back home to their families which has no small implication on the economy.
The $6.2 billion Nigerians in the US sent home in 2017 was not only more than was sent to any other African nation, it was also nearly double the Foreign Direct Investment Nigeria got that year ($3.5 billion, according to data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development).
Latest statistics show that Nigeria’s diaspora remittances were estimated at $25.08 billion in the year 2018. Although there was no break down given for the amount that came from the US, applying 2017’s percentage of 28 percent puts inflows at $7 billion.
According to CBN data, diaspora remittances have also overtaken oil proceeds, which shows just how much remittances have grown not only in amount but in significance to the Nigerian economy since 2013 when Nigerians abroad shipped home some $3.24 billion.
However, these inflows are estimated to suffer a set back this year due to the coronavirus-induced economic meltdown which has rendered some Nigerians in the diaspora jobless.
Bode Agusto, CEO of consulting firm, Agusto & Co, predicts a first decline in diaspora remittances in a decade this year, after projecting inflows could fall to $20 billion as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the global economy.
The US and UK, the destinations where Nigerians abroad send the most money from, are top on the list of countries that have been most affected by the pandemic as they have recorded some of the highest cases. The US leads in terms of cases with over 1.4 million and has recorded the most deaths at 83,425 as at May 13.
The UK is the fourth most affected country with 226,463 cases and 32,692 deaths, according to data from Worldometers.
