Nigeria's emergence from recessionremains slow: real GDP grew by 1.9 percent in 2018. Whilethis was above the 0.8 percent growth of 2017, it was belowthe population growth rate, government projections andpre-recession levels. The oil and gas sector reverted tocontraction from the second quarter of the year and thenon-oil economy was thus the main driver of growth in 2018.While agriculture slowed down significantly due to conflictand weather events, whose effects were not counteracted bydirect interventions by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),non-oil, non-agricultural growth, which remained negative upto the third quarter of 2017 strengthened through 2018 - butremained weak – with services (primarily ICT) resuming asthe key driver. As the oil sector is not labor-intensive,and the non-oil economy was still relatively weak, nearly aquarter of the work force was unemployed in 2018; andanother 20 percent under-employed. With 3.9 million netentrants into the labor force (now 90.5 million people)during 2018 (up to September) (4.5 percent growth), butvirtually no growth in the stock of jobs, unemployment roseby 2.7 percentage points since end-2017, and more thandoubled compared to the pre-recession levels (9.9 percent inQ3 of 2015).
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