WINDHOEK – The 2018 National Labour Force Survey results point to an increased need to address youth unemployment, which is estimated to have increased from 43 percent in 2016 to 46 percent by 2018, while the net effect on the overall unemployment rate is assessed to be generally neutral.
The most recent figures from the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) indicate that the country’s overall unemployment rate dropped slightly from 34 percent in 2016 to 33.4 percent in 2018. However, the statistics show that the youth are still the most unemployed group in the country with a staggering 46 percent of young people still without jobs. The results also indicate that regional youth unemployment was higher than the national unemployment rate of 33.4 percent in all 14 regions with Kavango East having the highest youth unemployment rate with only 37 percent of young people employed and earning an income. The Kunene, Ohangwena and Oshikoto regions all have more than 50 percent of their youth unable to find employment. Moreover, rural employment increased from around 261 705 in 2016 to around 310 155 in 2018. About 50 000 jobs were created in rural areas from 2016 to 2018, while in urban areas only 3 300 jobs were created. Around 58 percent of the people who were employed in 2018 worked in the informal sector.
In a recent statement, NSA vehemently denied allegations from certain media outlets and concerned unions that it consulted the country’s political leadership before releasing the latest employment statistics. According to the NSA’s Statistician-General and CEO, Alex Shimuafeni, the allegation is rather malicious and not in line with the way the statistical agency is mandated to function.
Shimuafeni took exception to the allegations and noted that such actions are against the law and NSA does not engage in unlawful conduct. According to Article 7 (5) of the Statistics Act 9 of 2011, no person may interfere with the Statistician-General in connection with the manner in which, and the time when, a statistical collection is to be undertaken; the capture, management, maintenance, integration, distribution and use of spatial data collected for statistical purposes; the form, extent and timing of the release of official or other statistics; whether a statistical collection should be discontinued; or the compilation, production, analysis or dissemination of a statistical collection.
Article 7 (6) states that a person who contravenes subsection 5, as mentioned above, commits an offence and is liable to a fine not exceeding N$50 000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years, or to both such fine and such imprisonment.
“These are serious allegations and I would like to challenge the concerned person to provide proof to the relevant authority to not only substantiate such allegations but also for the law to take its course. The NSA policy is that statistics are released impartially to all stakeholders and at the same time. This emanates from Section 55 (a) of the Statistics Act No 9 of 2011,” said Shimuafeni.
Shimuafeni explained that the latest Labour Force Survey 2018 collected data on the labour market activities of individuals who were present in Namibia on the reference night of 30 September 2018.
“Interviewing of households started on the 1st October and ended on the 16th October 2018. Like in the preceding surveys, the Labour Force Survey 2018 (LFS 2018) was conducted by interviewing individuals in private households excluding persons who were in institutions at the time of the survey as this was a household survey,” Shimuafeni noted.
He added that a key objective of the LFS 2018 was to ensure the production of the labour force indicators that meet local, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Africa Union (AU) and international standards for comparability purposes.
“The strength of the LFS 2018 is that it is one of the largest household surveys in terms of labour force statistics coverage in Namibia in recent times. As a result, it provides reliable statistics necessary to estimate labour conditions for regional estimates in Namibia. Like in any well-designed survey, the sampling errors are relatively small, as a result of improved and modern methods of data collection using a combination of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for identification of boundaries of sampled Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) and selected households within PSUs. The improved methodology also ensures efficient geo-coding of the questionnaires during data capturing and processing,” Shimuafeni explained.
In addition, he stated that the LFS 2018 followed the new adopted NSA approach of using a digital questionnaire in tablets to capture data during listing and data collection stages as was used during previous surveys. He explained that the paperless method made it possible to check for data inconsistencies interactively during the interview process, as edit rules were included in the data entry application. Such an approach enhances time data integrity and reliability.
A national sampling frame was used in the design of the sample. To understand this better, the national sampling frame is a list of all small geographical areas of the country called PSU, created using the enumeration areas (EA) of which their demarcations are based on the 2011 Population and Housing Census. The measure of size in the frame is the number of households within a particular PSU of which the size ranges between 40 and 120 households per PSU. The frame units were stratified first by regions, and then by urban or rural areas within the regions.
The sample design was, therefore, a two-stage stratified cluster sample, where the first stage units were the PSUs and the second stage units were the households. Sample sizes were determined to give reliable estimates of the population characteristics at the regional level, the lowest domain of estimation for the LFS 2018.
“For 2018 LFS, a total of 10 296 households constituted a representative random sample from 572 PSUs across the country where we achieved a 94 percent response rate. Power allocation procedure was adopted to distribute the sample across the regions so that the smaller regions will get adequate samples. The PSUs that the NSA uses to select the samples include both formal and informal settlements. Hence, this also ensured that houses that include Okahandja Park or 5 Rand camp had equal probabilities of being selected in the random sample,” Shimuafeni explained.
He continued that from a quality perspective, data quality assurance is one of the cornerstones of a good statistical data system, and it is in that light that NSA takes the importance of quality data that there is a dedicated department for it. The Data Quality Assurance department ensures that the collected data meets quality standards as set out in the Namibia Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF), by independently validating the collected data before it is released to the public.
“With regards to comparing economic growth to employment, it is important to take note that economic growth does not always go hand in hand with increased employment. For example, acquisition of automation and machinery used for production could lead to higher economic growth but not necessarily higher employment,” Shimuafeni stated.
Important definitions to understanding the Labour Force Data:Economically inactive population: All persons below the age of 15 years of age. In addition, all persons over 15 years of age who are not in employment or who are not available for work since they are full-time learners or students, homemakers (people involved only in unpaid household duties), ill, disabled or on early retirement.
Employed: The employed comprise all persons of working age who during a specified brief period, such as one week or one day, were in the following categories: a) paid employment (whether at work or with a job but not at work); or b) self-employment (whether at work or with an enterprise but not at work). Temporary absence from work includes reasons such as illness, maternity and parental leave, holiday, training, and industrial disputes.
Household: In this report, a household is defined as a group of people who normally live together, eat their meals together. For the LFS ‘normally’ means that the person concerned has lived in the household for at least six consecutive months of the past 12 months. Thus, the members of the household are identified on the basis of their ‘usual place of residence’.
Labour force: comprises all persons of either sex who furnish the supply of labour for the production of economic goods and services as defined by the United Nations systems of national accounts and balances during a specified time-reference period. It, therefore, consists of all persons of working age who were either employed or unemployed.
Unemployed in the strict sense: The unemployed comprise all persons of working age who were: a) without work during the reference period, i.e. were not in paid employment or self-employment; b) currently available for work, i.e. were available for paid employment or self-employment during the reference period; and c) seeking work i.e. had taken specific steps in a specified recent period to seek paid employment or self-employment.
Unemployed in the broad sense: The unemployed comprise all persons of working age who were: a) without work during the reference period, i.e. were not in paid employment or self-employment; and b) currently available for work, i.e. were available for paid employment or self-employment during the reference period.
Unemployment rate: signals to some extent the underutilisation of the labour supply. It reflects the inability of an economy to generate employment for those persons who want to work but are not doing so, even though they are available for employment and actively seeking work. It is thus seen as an indicator of the efficiency and effectiveness of an economy to absorb its labour force and of the performance of the labour market.
Work: The concept of work refers to persons who during the reference period performed some work for wage or salary, in cash or in kind (for paid employment), or persons who during the reference period performed some work for profit or family gain, in cash or in kind (for self-employment). For operational purposes, the notion “some work” may be interpreted as work for at least one hour. Employed persons include those persons of working age who worked for at least one hour during the reference period as contributing family workers (formerly referred to as unpaid family workers) working in a family business.