About 1.76 million persons were unemployed in the third quarter of 2022, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has said.

Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the Government Statistician, presenting the highlights of the report on the Ghana 2022 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) Third Quarter Labour Statistics, said within this population, two out of every three unemployed persons were females.

He said across the three quarters, about 157,000 persons experienced unemployment.

He said close to 7.5 million persons remained employed throughout the three quarters out of the

about 11 million persons employed in each quarter.

'This indicates that across the three quarters about 3.5 million persons were moving in and out of employment depicting vulnerabilities,' he said.

He said the transition from informal employment to unemployment was on average five times more than from formal employment into unemployment.

'Further, two out of every three unemployed persons in the third quarter that were employed in the first quarter were in vulnerable employment in the first quarter,' he said.

The Government Statistician said statistics on economic activity status, employment status, unemployment rate, youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), and labour mobilities across quarters, specifically movements in and out of employment, and across economic sectors (agriculture, industry, and services).

Mr Bright Wireko-Brobbey, the Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, expressed the

Government's gratitude to GSS for continuously producing quality, reliable, and robust data to inform public and private policy making and research.

He said the Ministry was very interested in such quarterly labour statistics as it provided data to support the implementation of their mandate to ensure decent work for all in Ghana.

'Data is crucial if the country wants to enhance the welfare of workers,' he added.

He said the production of such data for policy making was in line with the country's aim to achieve the SDGs, particularly SDG 8 on decent work and productive employment, the AU Agenda 2063 and the Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Development Policies, 2017-2024: An Agenda for Jobs: Creating Prosperity and Equal Opportunity For All.

He expressed the hope that stakeholders would continue to collaborate with GSS in carrying out their mandate.

AHIES is the first nationally representative high-frequency household panel survey in Ghana.

It is being conducted to obtain quarterly and annual data on household final consumption expenditure and a wide range of demographic, economic and welfare variables including statistics on labour, food security, multidimensional poverty and health status for research, planning, and policy making.

Source: Ghana News Agency