Two out of every three unemployed persons in the country are females – GSS Report

Two out of every three unemployed persons in the country are females, the 2022 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey Third Quarter Labour Statistics Report, has revealed.

The report was launched in Accra today, Wednesday, May 3, 2023 by the Ghana Statistical Service.

The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, who launched the report explained that “Our findings show that 2 out of every three persons employed are vulnerably employed. We see this skewed towards females to the extent that we find about a 200 percentage point difference between males and females. Although we had 11 million people employed, two-thirds of this number were vulnerably employed.”

He noted that the high rates of female unemployment were not solely due to their gender.

He has therefore admonished the government and other stakeholders to work together to create policies and initiatives to tackle unemployment, especially among women.

“Across the three quarters, about 157,000 persons experienced an unemployment spell, with close to 124,000 gaining employment in Q3 out of more than 377,000 persons who were unemployed in the first and second quarters. Additionally, almost 90,000 persons 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 further disclosed that the number of persons who are unemployed and multidimensionally poor remained at an average of about 615,000 across the three quarters, with a marginal increase of close to 20,000 more persons between the second and third quarters.

“However, the number of persons unemployed, food insecure, and multidimensionally poor decreased by 78,000 between the first and second quarters but increased by almost 55,000 in the third quarter.”