Data made available by National Bureau of Statistics have shown that the number of unemployed Nigerians has risen to 20.9 million from 17.6 million.

The report, released on Wednesday, contained employment trends from Q4 2017 to Q3 2018.

According to the report, the working-age population (people between 15 – 64 years) increased from 111.1 million to 115.5 million.

“The total number of people in employment (i.e with jobs) increased from 68.4 million in Q3 2015 to 68.72 million in Q3 2016, to 69.09 million in Q3 2017 and 69.54 million in Q3 2018,” the report read.

“The total number of people in full-time employment (at least 40 hours a week) increased from 51.1 million in Q3 2017 to 51.3 million in Q3, 2018.

“The total number of people in part-time employment (or underemployment) decreased from 13.20 million in Q3 2015 to 11.19 million in Q3 2016 but increased to 18.02 million in Q3 2017 and to 18.21 million in Q3 2018.

“The total number of people classified as unemployed, which means they did nothing at all or worked too few hours (under 20 hours a week) to be classified as employed increased from 17.6 million in Q4 2017 to 20.9 million in Q3 2018.”

Of the 20.9 million people who were unemployed, the report said 8.77 million of them were first-time job seekers, 0.93 million people were unemployed because they lost their jobs and 11.1 people were working for less than 20 hours a week.

The cable