The unemployment rate for persons aged 15 and above in Guyana currently stands at 12%, according to the 2017 Third Quarter Report of a continuous Labour Force Survey which was released by the Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.
The Report said the situation for women was substantially worse than that of men compared at 15.3% versus 9.9%.
The youth unemployment rate (aged 15 to 24) is almost twice that of adults staggering at 21.6%, with young women again facing severe hardship as 28 percent of them are unemployed.
The worrisome labour market situation of youth is confirmed by the proportion of youth, not in education, employment, or training. It is recorded at 35.2 percent and is higher for young women and young urban dwellers.
The general picture pointing to a marked disadvantage for women in the labour market is confirmed by the indicator regarding the proportion of women in managerial positions which in the third quarter of 2017 was recorded at 37.8 percent.
The report said this situation is substantially similar to that outlined by the 2012 Census.
The continuous Labour Force Surveys (LFS) are one of the main tools used to track labour market dynamics such as unemployment, job creation, and job destruction. However, up to July 2017, no such survey was regularly conducted in Guyana.
This reality hindered the possibility of having up-to-date, objective information to inform evidence-based policy decisions.
In response to a specific request by the Government of Guyana, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved non-reimbursable technical cooperation funds to assist with this.
“The first available data from the quarterly Guyana Labour Force Survey shows a situation substantially similar to that outlined by the 2012 Census,” the report summary noted.
It said the main differences which emerge from a comparison of the two sources concern the situation of women who, despite showing a sizeable disadvantage in the labour market, appear to be more engaged in the labour force and be less likely to be unemployed.
Added to that, the substantial drop in the number of workers and relative share engaged in the mining and quarrying sector and the reduction in the youth unemployment rate.
In the third quarter of 2017, the total population aged 15 and above residing in Guyana was 550,831 persons; the majority is based in urban areas (72.2 percent).
The employment-to-population ratio of persons aged 15 and above is 49.2 percent, with the rate being substantially higher for men than for women (62.1 percent against 36.9 percent).
Survey results show that between 48.3 and 52.6 percent of the employed labour force is holding informal jobs. The percentage of male workers holding informal jobs is higher than that of female workers (57.6 percent for males against 44.6 percent for females).
For salaried workers, the average labour income is G$82,636 per month across all the economic sectors, while the figure decreases to G$67,064 for self-employed workers.
The percentage of employed people in time-related underemployment was 4.2 percent, with most of the underemployed being based in urban areas (70.2 percent).
In addition to the measure of the time-related underemployment, the Guyana Labour Force Survey allows for the calculation of a number of indicators referring to the concept of labour underutilization.
Once outlined indicators are taken into account, the degree of labour underutilization appears somewhat higher than what the simple time-related underemployment would indicate.
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