Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, Government Statistician
Two out of every three persons who were unemployed in the third quarter of 2022 were females, a new report released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has indicated.
According to the Ghana 2022 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) Third Quarter Labour Statistics, 1.76 million persons were unemployed in the period under review.
The report released on May 3, 2023 in Accra, included statistics on economic activity status, employment status, unemployment rate, youth not in employment, education or training (NEET), and labour mobilities across quarters, specifically movements in and out of employment, and across economic sectors (agriculture, industry, and services).
It revealed that across the three quarters, about 157,000 persons experienced an unemployment spell meaning, they were unemployed in all the quarters.
“Close to 7.5 million persons remained employed throughout the three quarters out of the about 11 million persons employed in each quarter. This indicates that across the three quarters about 3.5 million persons were moving in and out of employment depicting vulnerabilities,” said Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim.
He disclosed that the transition from informal employment to unemployment is on the average five times more than from formal employment into unemployment.
“Further, two out of every three unemployed persons in Q3 that were employed in Q1 were in vulnerable employment in the first quarter,” he added.
Prof Annim further disclosed that the population that is triple burdened that is, simultaneously unemployed, food insecure and multi dimensionally poor increased by almost 55,000 between the second and third quarter.
Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Bright Wireko-Brobbey, expressed the government’s gratitude to GSS for continuously producing quality, reliable, and robust data to inform public and private policy making and research.
He stated that the Ministry was interested in such quarterly labour statistics as it provided data to support the implementation of their mandate to ensure decent work for all.
He added that such data is crucial if the country wants to enhance the welfare of workers.
Mr. Wireko-Brobbey noted that production of such data for policy making is in line with the country’s aim to achieve the SDGs particularly SDG 8 on decent work and productive employment, the AU Agenda 2063 and the Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Development Policies, 2017-2024: An Agenda for Jobs: Creating Prosperity and Equal Opportunity For All.
The Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) is the first nationally representative high-frequency household panel survey in Ghana.
It is being conducted to obtain quarterly and annual data on household final consumption expenditure and a wide range of demographic, economic and welfare variables including statistics on labour, food security, multidimensional poverty and health status for research, planning, and policy making.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri