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Home / Slight drop in unemployment rate - NSA

Slight drop in unemployment rate - NSA

2019-03-29  Kuzeeko Tjitemisa

Slight drop in unemployment rate - NSA

WINDHOEK- Namibian’s unemployment rate decreased slightly by 0.6 percent, from 34 percent in 2016 to 33.4 percent in 2018, this is according to Statistician General Alex Shimuafeni who noted unemployment remains “very high” in the Kavango East, Kunene, Omaheke and Zambezi regions. 

Shimuafeni the CEO of the Namibia Statistic Agency (NSA) said the results of the Namibia Labour Force Survey indicators released by NSA yesterday was conducted between September and October last year.

Announcing the results, he said the objectives of the survey is to provide up to date labour market information for NSA planning and decision making.

The data provided, he said, consist of industry information as well as employment and unemployment indicators.

“We target non-institutional population residing in private households across the country. We are happy that we achieved quite an acceptable response rate of over 94 percent,” he said, adding that this is a good indicator that Namibians response rate was satisfactory as per the international standards.

Shimuafeni says from statistical significance point of view, there was no significant differences between the figure of 2016 and that of 2018.

He said the youth unemployment rate (for 15 years to 34 years) for 2018, jumped to 46.1 percent from 43.4 percent recorded in 2016.

However, he said with regards to the youth in the age range of 19 to 34 years, the unemployment rate is 44.8 percent.

“While, we have a significant increase in female employment, 318 615 in 2016 to 364 234 in 2018, we only had a slight increase in the male segment,” he explained.

He said in 2016 male employment figures slightly increased from 358 270 to 361 508 in 2018.

“Whilst urban employment remained literally static between 2016 and 2018, the rural indicators show an increase from 261 707 to 310 154,” he said.

Shimuafeni said the unemployment levels by level of education are also provided and it remains clear that the lower the education level the higher the chances of being without employment.

“For the first time, we have started tracking unemployment rate among technical/vocational certificates and diploma holders. This unemployment rate stand at 33.3 percent,” he said.

He said the report also shows that high proportion of the country youth (34.9 percent) are not in employment, education or training.

He said all these indicators shows that as a nation we still have a lot of work to do to reduce unemployment especially among the youth.

Furthermore, Shimuafeni said the analysis showed that there are varying degrees in salaries, while some earn high salaries some are still earning very low salaries.

He said average for the country however, is around N$7 935 per month. “In general the results show that men still earn higher salaries than women,” he said.

Also, he said the report measured unemployment in the informal sector.

“Employees were categorized as being in informal employment if their employer does not provide at least a pension scheme, medical aid or social security,” he said.

In this regard, Shimuafeni said 57.7 percent of the employed population is working in the informal employment.
    

  


 


2019-03-29  Kuzeeko Tjitemisa

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