Most Namibians employed in elementary occupations

DETAILS in the 2016 Labour Force Survey report released by the Namibia Statistics Agency on Friday reveal that elementary occupations constitute the largest number of employed persons in Namibia.

Elementary occupations, which constitute 30,5% of the country’s labour force, is followed by service and sales occupations, which constitute 13,5% of the number of employed people in the country.

Elementary occupations consist of simple and routine tasks which mainly require the use of hand-held tools, and often some physical effort.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) website, tasks performed by workers in elementary occupations usually include selling goods on streets and public places, or from door to door; providing various street services; cleaning, washing, pressing; taking care of flats, hotels, offices and other buildings; washing windows and other glass surfaces of buildings; delivering messages or goods; carrying luggage; doorkeeping and property watching; stocking vending machines, or reading and emptying meters; collecting garbage; sweeping streets and similar places; performing various simple farming, fishing, hunting or trapping tasks; performing simple tasks connected with mining, construction and manufacturing, including product-sorting and simple hand-assembling of components; packing by hand; freight handling; pedalling or hand-guiding vehicles to transport passengers and goods; as well as driving animal-drawn vehicles or machinery.

The full Labour Force Survey (LFS) report for 2016, which comes as a follow-up to the key indicators which were released earlier, further show that skilled agriculture, which was the number one occupation in 2014, has dropped to fourth position to account for 11,2% in 2016.

The 2016 survey also reveals that the number of people employed in 2014 dropped from 708 841 to 676 885 in 2016, which statistician general Alex Shimuafeni said during the announcement of the survey’s highlights last month could be as a result of the prolonged drought which affected the agricultural sector and the country since 2015.

Although the survey further reveals that in terms of the economic sector, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector remains the highest employment sector in Namibia, accounting for 20,1% of employed persons, it is a decline of about 9,4% when compared to the 29,5% recorded in the 2014 LFS.

The lowest employment sectors were the real estate activities and extraterritorial (foreign missions) organisations and bodies’ sectors, each accounting for 0,2% of employed persons in Namibia in 2016.

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