Inflation Hits 10.3 Percent

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said that inflation rate stood at 10.3 per cent in September.

The NBS also said that 12,979,125 Nigerians of between 15 years and 65 years are unemployed and that the total labour force was 61,512,445 in 2010.

The Statistician-General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale told a news conference in Abuja that the inflation rate was 1.0 per cent higher than the 9.3 per cent recorded in August. Kale also disclosed that the monthly change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 1.41 per cent in September, compared with the 1.67 per cent achieved in August. He said the biggest contributors to the rise in consumer inflation in September were electricity and food items like yam, fish and cooking oil. The statistician-general said the All Items year-on-year average consumer price level for urban and rural dwellers rose by 8.4 per cent and 11.9 per cent, respectively. He said urban All Items monthly index was 1.4 per cent in September against 1.7 per cent in August while the rural index was 1.4 per cent in September compared with 1.6 per cent in August.

“The All Items Less Farm Produce’ index which excluded the prices of agricultural products increased by 1.9 per cent in September 2011 against 0.9 per cent in August, 2011,’’the statistician-general said.

Kale said that the increase was mainly caused by rising prices of some household items, building materials, diesel, kerosene and electricity charges. According to him, prices and weighting were the two basic parameters used to arrive at the CPI.

“The price data are collected for a sample of goods and services from a sample of sales outlets in a sample of locations for a sample of times. “The weighting data are estimates of shares of the different types of expenditure in the total expenditure covered by the index’

“These weights are usually based upon expenditure data obtained from expenditure surveys for a sample of household or upon estimates of the composition of consumption expenditure in the National Income and Product Account, ’’ he said.

The statistician-general said that 10,534 officers were used to collate data for the CPI monthly. Kale said that 740 product specifications were priced across the rural and urban areas of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT. According to him, average price of each item was computed for each sector for each state and the FCT and used for index computation. The statistician-general said out of the total labour force of 61.5 million, 48,533,319 Nigerians were fully and under employed, while the remaining 12,979,125 were unemployed “These 48,533,319 people within the labour force were engaged in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector which constituted the highest number of employed persons in Nigeria, followed by the wholesale and retail trade sector.

“Out of the total labour force of 61.5 million, the unemployment rate, which is the proportion of the labour force, not the entire population, that is available, willing and able to work or working for at least 40 hours a week on average, was 21.1 per cent or 12,979,125 Nigerians in 2010’’.