Nearly half of Nigerian households experienced a job loss, business closure, or inability to find work in the past 12 months, according to a new report by SBM Intelligence released on Thursday, August 13, 2026. The report, titled "Six Zones, One Crisis: What Nigerians say about jobs, skills and the risk of leaving," found that 45.3% of households suffered at least one of these economic shocks during the period.
The findings, based on an in-person survey of 1,180 respondents across 21 cities between July 7 and 18, 2026, show that Nigeria's employment crisis differs significantly across regions. SBM Intelligence noted that a one-size-fits-all national jobs programme is unlikely to address these localized underlying problems.
Regional Barriers and High Labor Mobility
The Southeast recorded the highest incidence of household economic shock at 66.5%, meaning about two-thirds of surveyed households in the region struggled with employment or business closures. SBM Intelligence linked this to infrastructure, capital, and security pressures, including disruptions from sit-at-home orders. The Northcentral followed at 61.3%, while the South-South recorded 50.3%, the Northeast 40.4%, the Southwest 32.7%, and the Northwest the lowest at 21.5%.
Low pay was the leading labour constraint in the Southeast (24.8%) and the South-South (21.1%). In contrast, the Northwest and Northeast were more affected by skills shortages, cited by 26.8% and 22.9% of respondents respectively. In the Southwest, poor infrastructure was the biggest obstacle at 21%, closely followed by difficulty accessing capital at 20%, while credit access was a major challenge in the Northcentral at 21%.
These regional weaknesses are driving high mobility, with 79.1% of respondents willing to consider relocating for a good job. Specifically, 21.2% said they would definitely relocate, 57.9% would relocate depending on conditions, and only 20.9% preferred to remain. The South-South had the highest relocation tendency at 92.6%, with respondents in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Calabar reporting significant difficulty finding jobs despite the region's oil production.
Digital Skills Demand and Policy Recommendations
Nigerians increasingly view digital capabilities as a route to improved employment, with digital skills selected as the top training option nationally by 52.7% of respondents. This preference was strongest in the Southeast at 71.4%, followed by the Northwest at 58.5% and the South-South at 58.3%. The Northeast was the sole exception, where construction trades ranked first at 29.4%, ahead of digital skills at 23.9%.
SBM Intelligence recommended federal investment in inter-zonal economic corridors, a national digital skills infrastructure, improved credit access for small enterprises, and a national vocational qualification framework. The group noted that current credit programmes do not sufficiently reach informal businesses and self-employed Nigerians, who made up 34.1% of the survey respondents.
The report cautioned that its sample over-represented urban and educated Nigerians, as 56.8% of respondents were urban residents and 38.6% held an HND or bachelor's degree. Additionally, the Northeast sample was drawn mainly from Bauchi (excluding Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa), while 114 of the 119 Northcentral respondents were from Abuja.
This data comes alongside warnings from the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) in its report, "From Hustle to Decent Work: Unlocking Jobs and Productivity for Economic Transformation in Nigeria." The NESG warned that Nigeria must generate at least 27.3 million new formal jobs between 2025 and 2030, averaging 4.55 million net new jobs annually, to maintain its unemployment rate at 4.3%, which was down from 5.3% in Q1 2024 according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
