Thursday, May 13, 2021

Unemployment spikes in 2020

The rate of unemployment has spiked in 2020 from 2019 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy. Figures from the department of census and statistics show that unemployment remained above 5% throughout the whole of 2020.

Unemployment in the period from 2017 to 2019 remained below 5% except for the 3rd quarter in 2019 when unemployment rose to 5.1%.

The labour force survey was recently uploaded to the Department of Census and statistics website.

The estimated economically active population is about 8.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. Of which 66.3 per cent are males and 33.7 per cent are females.

The economically inactive population is about 8.4 million. Out of the economically inactive population 27.3 per cent are males and 72.7 per cent are females.

By gender across the age spectrum, the highest participation rate for male is reported from age group 35—39 years (96.8%), while that for females it is reported from the 25—29 age group (46.6%).

By sector, the report shows that 44.8 per cent are engaged in the Service sector, 29.0 per cent in the Agriculture sector and 26.2 per cent in the Industry sector. Discriminating on educational attainment people who have completed their high school education are the most likely to be unemployed. The report notes ‘Survey results further show that the problem of unemployment is more acute in the case of educated females than educated males, which was observed consistently over the results of previous survey rounds as well.’

The fieldwork of the survey for the fourth quarter of 2020 was done in October, November and December in the year 2020. This report is based on the data collected in a quarterly sample of 6,440 housing units.

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