Unemployment rate drops

The Namibia Labour Force Survey for 2014 released on Thursday indicates that the rate of unemployment has decreased to 28.1%.

This is a drop of 1.5% as compared to the rate of 29.6% reported in 2013.
Acting General Statistician General at the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), Liina Kafidi said there has been an increase of entries into employment by 22,733 people and a reduction of 12,517 people in the unemployment category of the labour force.
The survey also recorded an increase in urban population of 4.3% from 43.1% in 2013 to 47.4% of the 2.2 million estimated population.
The working age population, that is those aged 15 or older, increased with 49,216 people.
According to the report, there was a slight increase in Labour force participation of 10,207 people, which is an increase from 980,781 in 2013 to 990,998 people in 2014.
The survey was conducted on a sample basis covering a representative sample of 10, 296 households which were selected from all 14 regions recording a response rate of 95% as an improvement from the 2013 survey where the response rate was 93.4%.
Kafidi said that 41.1% of the Namibian employed population are employed in the informal sector of which 37.7% are female and 44.3% are male, with the !Karas Region having the highest percentage of employed people in the informal employment sector of 70.4% and the Kavango Region having the lowest percentage of 12.1%.
The reports also indicates N$21,749 per month as the highest average wage associated with the Mining and Quarrying sector, while the lowest is N$1,168 per month which is associated with the private household sector.
The data in the report also shows that the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector have the highest employed people by industry and sex followed by the wholesale and retail trade sector and by private households with percentages of 29.5%, 13.6%, and 9.4% respectively.