The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has said about 18,919 persons lost their jobs in the public sector between October 2015 and March 2016.
About 10,155 were sacked in the federal, state and local governments’between last October and December; 8,764 others were fired between January and March.
The Bureau, which reported a decline of 84.1 per cent in employment generation, against the figure in the last quarter of 2015, said only about 79,469 jobs were generated in the first three months of 2016, against about 499,521 created during the corresponding period of 2015.
The NBC said in its quarterly job creation survey, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that the figure was reduced by 420,052.
On jobs created in the first quarter, the Bureau said about 21,477 jobs came from the formal sector, consisting professional services with less than 10 employees, while about 60,026 jobs came from the informal sector, made up of mainly low skill and low-paying blue-collar jobs in agriculture, light manufacturing, wholesale and retail businesses.
