24 May 2006


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Business Today



Unemployment at 7.8 per cent

The Labour Force Survey published yesterday shows that the number of persons over 15 years for the first month of 2006 was estimated to be 325,243 with the majority, 50.6 per cent, being inactive.
On the other hand, the total number of employed persons reached 148,230 persons or 45.6 per cent of all persons over 15 years. Additionally, the total number of unemployed for the three months to February 2006 reached 12,561 persons.
The activity rate which is defined as the number of persons in the labour force aged between 15 to 64 years as a percentage of the working population, stood at 58 per cent.
The activity rate for males stood at 79.5 per cent whilst that of females reached 36.3 per cent.
Out of the working population aged between 15 to 64 years, 53.5 per cent were employed. The male employment rate was 74.4 per cent whilst the female employment rate reached 32.3 per cent.
For the three months to February 2006, the unemployment rate was estimated to be 7.8 per cent. The unemployment rate for males stood at 6.4 per cent whilst that for females reached 11 per cent.
For the month under review, the total number of self employed reached 20,920 persons. This figure was made up of 14,467 sole proprietors and another 6,453 self employed with employees. The majority of the total employed were employees, with a total of 127,130 persons. Of these, 67.4 per cent were males and 32.6 per cent were females.
The number of employed persons were categorised by economic sector, which shows that people working in agriculture totalled 3,419. A drop in the industry sector was registered when compared to same period last year to reach the estimate of 42,392 persons. This drop was mostly attributed to decrease in employment in the manufacturing sector. The majority of persons or 69.1 per cent of the total employed worked in the services sector.
The month’s estimates are based on three-month rolling averages. Hence, figures for this release contain information on December 2005, January and February 2006. Data has been grossed up separately for each month and a combined average for producing February 2005 data was worked out.



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