Out of a total active labour force of 85.08 million people in Nigeria, about 16 million people were unemployed in the third quarter of 2017, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has said.

This was contained in a report on Labour Force Statistics in the third quarter of 2017 published on the bureau’s website on Monday.

The report said the category of unemployed persons comprised 8.5 million people ”who engaged in an economic activity for at least an hour” and 7.5 million people ”who did absolutely nothing.”

Also, 18.02 million people were underemployed, as they worked for 20 to 39 hours a week, which is less than the 40 hours required to be classified among the workforce.

Fully employed persons, who worked for 40 hours and above in the third quarter of 2017 were 51.06 million people, resulting in a total of 77.6 million people engaged in an extent of economic activity.

The report said among the 77.6 million people who were engaged in some extent of economic activity, 29.66 million people were self-employed, engaged in agriculture and 21.66 million were self-employed in non-agricultural sectors.

About 19.72 million were working for pay or wage, which, is equivalent to 25.42 per cent of the total workers in the third quarter of 2017, while paid apprentices and unpaid house workers constituted 7.30 per cent and 1.11 per cent of the total working force engaged for at least one hour a week.

The report also revealed that more men worked full-time than women, while a higher percentage of female worked part-time between 20-39 hours and below 20 hours per week.

“The absolute number of male full-time workers, 34.85 million, was more than twice the number of female full-time workers, 16.21 million, in the third quarter of 2017.

“A larger percentage of men to women were self-employed in the agricultural sector, while a larger percentage of women were self-employed in non-agricultural areas of work.

“Agriculture dominated both female and male labor markets. Most economic sectors including agriculture, Other Services, Manufacturing, Professional, Scientific and Technical Services, Transportation and Storage, and Construction employed more male workers than female workers,” the report said.