Ghana’s Industry Sector Loses 217,000 Workers to Agriculture and Services Sectors in GSS Q1 2022 Report

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Ghana Statistical Service has released its Quarter 3 Labor Statistics report, which highlights changes in employment trends for the Ghanaian economy in 2022. According to the report, there were significant shifts in the industry sector, with 217,000 employees transitioning to the agriculture and services sectors during the first quarter of the year.

Of these transitions, the agriculture sector absorbed a net of around 54,000 employees, while the services sector gained more than 38,000 workers from the industry sector across all three quarters. The report suggests that this trend could indicate a growing demand for jobs in the agriculture and services sectors.

The latest employment figures from Ghana’s Statistical Service have shown that between the first and third quarters of 2022, about 155,000 individuals shifted from formal to informal employment. However, more than 89,000 people moved from the informal to the formal sector in the same period. The unemployment rate remained high, ranging from 13.4% to 13.9% across the three quarters and remaining primarily an urban issue.

The report also found that the transition from informal employment to unemployment was five times more prevalent than the movement from formal employment to unemployment. Approximately 157,000 people experienced an unemployment spell across the three quarters, with almost 124,000 gaining employment in Q3. Over 377,000 people were unemployed in the first and second quarters.

Additionally, almost 90,000 people outside the labour force in the first quarter transitioned to unemployment status in the second quarter and remained unemployed in the third quarter. The report highlighted that around 615,000 people remained unemployed and multidimensionally poor on average across the three quarters, with a slight increase of almost 20,000 people between the second and third quarters.

However, the number of people who were unemployed, food insecure, and multidimensionally poor decreased by 78,000 between the first and second quarters but rose by almost 55,000 in the third quarter. The report also identified the top five regions with the highest NEET rates in the third quarter, including Savannah (27.8%), North-East (24.3%), and Upper East (24.2%). These regions had the highest proportion of young people who were not employed.

BY:AGRIWATCH REPORTER