Here are educational degrees with highest unemployment rate in Nigeria

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Q2 2020 report revealed that unemployment rate in Nigeria has increased from 23.1 percent in Q3 2018 to 27.1 percent in Q2 2020, thereby implying a rise in unemployed persons. The unemployed were categorised into various groups from education to age and region.

Of the educational groups, below primary education had the highest degree of unemployment at almost half of the entire unemployed persons in Nigeria. This is closely followed by BA/BSc/Bed/HND and NCE/OND/Nursing holders with 41 percent and 31 percent unemployment rates, respectively, as at Q2 2020.

This does not really differ from statistics of Q3 2018 where NCE equivalent holders had the highest unemployment rankings as well as Q4 2016 which had post-secondary school holders as the greatest proportion of unemployed persons.

Interestingly, PhD holders are ranked 7th place out of a total of 11 education rankings (that is, 23.3 percent or 17,831 persons) in the proportion of unemployed Nigerians as at Q2 2020. This signifies worse placement than that of Q3 2018, which was the 9th and least category of unemployed persons (that is, 13.6 percent or almost 9,832 persons).

Meanwhile, Vocational/Commercial apprentices have the least unemployment level at 17.9 percent in 2020.
Surprisingly, those who do not fall into any of the educational categories have the highest volume of underemployed persons, amounting to 39 percent of the labour force.

However, those with equivalent of BSc degree constitute the least portion of underemployed individuals at 19.5 percent of the labour force in Q2 2020, while MSc holders had the least unemployment as at Q3 2018 and those with less than primary education were the least number of underemployed persons in both Q4 2016 and Q4 2015.

Again, not far-fetched is the fact that those who have never attended school take the lead among underemployed Nigerians in preceding periods of Q3 2018, Q4 2016 and Q4 2015.

Underemployed PhD holders rank 8th position out of 12 places (that is, 25.2 percent or 58,695 persons), which is lower than that of unemployed persons based on educational qualification in Q2 2020.

These unemployment statistics show that although those who have never attended school have the most chances of being underemployed, attaining higher levels of education is not a solid guarantee of better employment chances. This is seen as the number of highest qualified individuals that are unemployed (PhD holders) went up from ranking last place in Q3 2018 to 7th place of 11 positions in Q2 2020.