1.7m persons unemployed in third quarter 2022 – Labour Statistics Report

About 1.7 million persons in the country were unemployed in the third quarter of 2022, the 2022 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) third Quarter Labour Statistics Report has revealed.

It said the unemployed population in the third quarter, is out of the 11 million persons who were employed and engaged in a form of economic activity in each of the three quarters.

The report said females constituted 620,000 of the unemployed population in the third quarter and two out of the three unemployed persons were females.

It said about 157,000 persons experienced an unemployment spell, meaning they could not secure employment in all the three quarters of 2022.

The report further indicated that about 7.5 million persons were employed in all the three quarters of 2022 and across the three quarters about 3.5 million persons were moving from in and out of employment depicting vulnerabilities.

The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel K. Annim, speaking at the launch in Accra yesterday, said those who were unemployed in the period under review were engaged in vulnerable employment.

He defined vulnerable employment as persons engaged in jobs without verbal or written contract.

Prof. Annim said the survey covered a population of 19,071,964 with response rate of 98.1 per cent, adding that more people moved from industry to agriculture and services in the period under review.

He said services accounted for 52.7 per cent of jobs in the third quarter, while agriculture took 21.4 per cent of jobs and industry 20.9 per cent of jobs.

“More persons employed in the Industry sector in the first quarter of 2022, which stood at 217,000 transitioned to other sectors relative to the Agriculture (117,000) and Services (182,000) sectors,” he said.

He said “The Agriculture sector absorbed a net of about 54,000 persons and Services more than 38,000 persons from the Industry sector across the three quarters. In the third quarter, the Agriculture sector maintained a net gain of more than 25,000 persons from the Services sector.”

He said the transition from informal employment to unemployment was on the average five times more than from formal employment into unemployment.

“Between first and second quarter, about 155,000 persons transitioned out of the formal to the informal employment sector in both second and third. More than 89,000 employed persons in the informal sector in first, transitioned to and remained in the formal sector in second and third quarter,” Prof.Annim, stated.

He said the unemployment rate ranged between 13.4 and 13.9 percent respectively  across the three quarters and predominantly remained an urban phenomenon and defined unemployment rate as the number of unemployed persons 15 years and older divided by the economically active population 15 years and older multiplied by 100.

The Deputy Minister  of Employment and Labour Relations, Bright  Wireko-Brobbey who chaired the programme, expressed gratitude to the Ghana Statistical Service for continuously producing quality, reliable and robust data to inform the public and  private policy making and research.

He stated that the Ministry was very interested in such quarterly labour statistics as it provided data to support the implementation of their mandate to ensure decent work for all in Ghana.

BY KINGSLEY ASARE