Unemployment remains the top priority Namibians want the government to address and has consistently been cited as the single largest issue in every Afrobarometer survey round since 1999.
It is most often the very first problem mentioned among respondents’ three choices.
Confidence in the government’s handling of job creation has meanwhile fallen to an all-time low in the 2024 round, with only 12% of respondents saying the government is doing ‘fairly well’ or ‘very well’.
This comes against the backdrop of the 2023 Labour Force Survey, which reported a broad unemployment rate of 55%, up from 33% in 2018.
Confidence has fallen steadily since 2014, when 36% believed the government was handling job creation well.
Of all problems stated, unemployment remains the dominant one across all regions, with the highest proportions in the two most urban regions (the Khomas and Erongo regions), as well as the four northern O-regions.
The survey was undertaken by Cirrus Survey Warehouse Namibia as part of the Afrobarometer series conducted across Africa.
– Tannan Groenewald is head of data and analytics at Cirrus
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