Georgetown: The Bureau of Statistics Wednesday announced its publication on Monday 26 September, 2016 of Compendium Three (3), further detailing the findings of the 2012 Census. In accordance with its commitment to disseminate four (4) Compendiums in 2016 Monday’s dissemination of the third Compendium has brought the Bureau closer to achieving its self-imposed deadline.
The focus of this Compendium was the Economic Activity profile of the Census. Economic Activity focuses on the Labour Force component of the population profile, that is, the size and composition of the Labour Force, the level of employment and unemployment, types of economic activities undertaken within the economy and many other areas of interest.
The findings of the 2012 Census puts Guyana’s unemployment rate at 12.5 percent. When further disaggregated by gender the unemployment rate for males was recorded as 10.6 percent and females 16.7 percent. Prior to the Census, the most recent unemployment rate was 10.7 percent from the 2006 Household Budget Survey (HBS), an intercensal survey.
Guyana has not executed a Labour Force Survey in recent times. In all instances of executing a nation-wide Survey, Cabinet Approval has to be first given and requisite funding approved and disbursed. As a consequence and as a second-best approach labour force data has been sourced from intercensal Household Budget Surveys or Censuses since the Census of 1991. Every Census and National Survey has therefore carried an economic activity module which has allowed on-going estimates and generation of key indicators on the Labour Force at intermittent periods over the past twenty-five years. Recent media reports stating there has been no Labour Force data in the longest while and unemployment figures have been kept a secret are distinctly less than accurate.
However, steps are now in place to change and significantly improve this current dispensation by having a quarterly Labour Force Survey which will commence in 2017. The Survey Department of the Bureau of Statistics with technical support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is currently in preparatory mode to execute this survey which as earlier indicated has not been done in Guyana, as a unique subject-matter survey for more than two (2) decades.
At this juncture we at the Bureau of Statistics is asking the public to cooperate with our personnel during this exercise which will be on-going, to assist in achieving reliable and timely labour force data in the interest of planning for the development of the country’s labour force which includes all of us.
The Compendiums are available for free download from the Bureau’s website http://www.statisticsguyana.gov.gy like the previous two (2) Compendiums and the final one to follow, this Third Compendium is the Bureau’s on-going contribution to public knowledge and the facilitation of evidence-based decision-making at all levels.
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