As Nigeria moves to modernise its labour laws and implement the National Employment Policy (NEP) 2025, the country’s development ambitions will depend less on the size of its workforce than on its ability to reform labour market governance to reflect the realities of a rapidly changing world of work, GLORIA NWAFOR reports.

Nigeria’s labour market is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Digital platforms, freelance work, multiple-income livelihoods and technology-driven enterprises are reshaping employment faster than labour institutions and legal frameworks can adapt.

Recognising this shift, the Federal Government has launched the National Employment Policy (NEP) 2025 and commenced labour law reforms aimed at modernising employment regulation, strengthening labour market institutions, improving skills development, expanding decent work opportunities and encouraging business formalisation.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)/International Labour Organisation (ILO) labour market assessments, approximately 93 per cent of employment in Nigeria remains informal. In comparison, about 85.6 per cent of workers are self-employed rather than wage employees. At the same time, an estimated 3.5 million Nigerians enter the labour market every year, placing enormous pressure on an economy that cannot generate sufficient formal jobs to absorb them.

The launch of the National Employment Policy (NEP) 2025 and legislative efforts to regulate employment in the informal economy suggest that the government recognises that the world of work has fundamentally changed, representing an important opportunity to reposition Nigeria’s labour market.

The policy seeks to strengthen institutional coordination, improve labour market information systems, promote skills development, expand decent work opportunities and encourage formalisation of businesses.
Stakeholders opined that the real policy challenge is no longer simply whether Nigerians have jobs but whether Nigeria’s labour laws still understand what a job looks like.

They argued that for decades, labour policy assumed a relatively simple economic relationship, in which a worker had one employer, reported to one workplace, received one salary, and was protected by one legal framework.

According to them, labour inspection, pensions, workplace safety, collective bargaining and employment dispute mechanisms all evolved around that assumption. That model no longer reflects the lives of many Nigerians, they maintained.

Beyond the unemployment debate, today’s graduates may design logos for clients abroad, monetise YouTube videos, manage social media accounts for local businesses, teach online classes and sell products through digital marketplaces—all within the same month.

Another worker may alternate between ride-hailing, logistics delivery, online retail, and seasonal agricultural work depending on demand. In contrast, a domestic worker may supplement household employment by operating a small digital business from home.

These are no longer isolated examples of entrepreneurial ingenuity. They increasingly represent how millions construct livelihoods in an economy where secure wage employment remains scarce.

Rather than merely an expansion of the informal economy, this signals the emergence of a workforce built around multiple income streams rather than a single employer.

While they argued that the workforce has changed faster than the law, they stressed that the revised National Employment Policy acknowledges that technological innovation, digital transformation and changing employment patterns require new approaches to labour governance.

The law calls for stronger labour-market information systems, improved employment services, and better
institutional coordination, and stakeholders noted that these reforms are important because they recognise that employment itself is evolving.

Recently, the Minister for Labour and Employment, Muhammadu Dingyadi, at a forum in Lagos, expressed the Federal Government’s commitment to modernising labour administration by advancing labour law reforms to ensure that Nigeria’s legal frameworks respond effectively to the realities of a changing world of work, characterised by digital transformation, platform employment, new forms of work organisation and emerging occupational safety challenges.

This is also as the just-concluded International Labour Conference (ILC) adopted Convention 193, officially titled Decent Work in the Platform Economy, the first international standard aimed at regulating the digital platform economy and safeguarding platform workers’ rights.

For these laws to work effectively in Nigeria, they argued that their success would depend largely on effective implementation and sustained political commitment.

A peace and conflict researcher/policy analyst, Lekan Olayiwola, who noted that labour reform should extend beyond employment creation, said labour-market data must evolve to capture platform work, freelance employment, multiple-income livelihoods and digital entrepreneurship.

According to him, policymakers cannot govern labour realities that they do not adequately measure.
He urged that labour legislation should develop clearer legal classifications for emerging forms of work while preserving the flexibility that enables innovation, entrepreneurship and business growth.

Olayiwola stressed that social protection should become increasingly portable, allowing pensions, health insurance and other employment benefits to follow workers across multiple jobs rather than remaining tied to a single employer.

The reforms, he said, would benefit workers and employers alike by reducing legal uncertainty, improving dispute resolution and strengthening confidence in Nigeria’s rapidly changing labour market.

“Nigeria already struggles to enforce existing labour standards across much of the formal economy, while labour inspection remains under-resourced. Updating legal categories without strengthening institutional capacity would merely create another set of admirable laws with limited practical effect,” he said.

Reform, he said, must therefore proceed alongside investment in labour-market data, inspection capacity and digital regulatory systems.

He added: “Nigeria’s employment challenge has not disappeared. Millions still need decent work. But the country’s labour conversation risks solving yesterday’s problems while overlooking today’s realities.

“The most important question is no longer simply how many Nigerians are employed. It is whether the law recognises the millions who have already created work for themselves. The workforce has entered the twenty-first century. Labour law is only beginning to catch up.”

Also, George Sinclair of the Department of Public Administration, Mewar International University, said that labour market governance should become a central pillar of Nigeria’s development strategy that requires stronger institutions capable of enforcing labour regulations, improving inter-agency collaboration, aligning education with labour market demands and expanding social protection to workers in both the formal and informal sectors.

Noting that sustainable economic development cannot be achieved through macroeconomic reforms alone, he urged that economic growth must translate into quality employment, rising productivity and improved living standards.

This, he said, can only happen when governance systems are strong enough to connect education, employment, industry and social protection within a coherent national framework.

“By strengthening institutions, investing in human capital, promoting inclusive labour policies and creating an enabling environment for productive work, Nigeria can transform its vast workforce into the engine of sustainable economic growth, shared prosperity and national development,” he said.