Two-thirds of Ghana’s unemployed are women – Statistical Service report

• Posted on May 4, 2023May 4, 2023
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

According to the 2022 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey Third Quarter Labour Statistics Report launched in Accra today, females make up two-thirds of the unemployed individuals in the country.

The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, emphasized at the report launch that the high rates of female unemployment were not solely due to their gender.

He stated that the unemployment rate for females was almost double that of males. “Unemployment among females was close to twice of males,” he said.

In the first three quarters of last year, about 157,000 individuals, which accounted for roughly 13.2% of the labour force, experienced a spell of unemployment lasting one or more days.

Other findings

According to the report, around 7.5 million individuals held their jobs continuously for three quarters out of approximately 11 million employees in each quarter. This suggests that roughly 3.5 million individuals were experiencing employment fluctuations over the three quarters, indicating vulnerability.

Another important discovery was that the likelihood of shifting from informal employment to unemployment is five times greater on average than transitioning from formal employment to unemployment.

In Q3, two out of every three individuals who were unemployed but had been employed in Q1 were in precarious employment during the first quarter.

Lastly, the group of people who are burdened by the triple threat of being unemployed, food insecure, and multidimensionally impoverished increased by almost 55,000 between Q2 and Q3.