by Grace Chekai
Government has commended Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) for working closely with the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare which is the main user of information from the Labour Force and Child Labour Survey in coming up with the 2019 Labour Force and Child Labour Survey results (LFCLS)
Speaking at a workshop on the dissemination of the LFCLS today in Harare, the Human Resources Manager for PSC, Erasmus Gapara said, "I would like to begin by expressing our appreciation to our colleagues in the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency for working closely with our Ministry in the Technical Committees which worked on the design of the survey instruments, through to the actual field work in June 2019 and in the data analysis and report writing stages of the 2019 LFCLS.
"This kind of the user-producer liaison is vital in ensuring that emerging areas of statistical requirements are incorporated in such surveys thereby generating relevant indicators for monitoring and evaluating national, regional and global programmes," said Gapare.
Gapara said the 2019 LFLCS findings which were undertaken in the wake of major changes in the methodological framework for the production of work statistics, brought about by the resolutions of the 19th International Conference of Labour Statistics in 2013, were long awaited for.
He said in the new standards, the definition of employment was now confined to work performed for others in exchange for pay or profit and now excludes own use production and volunteer work. Gapara added that the indicators generated using the new standards would enable the Government to respond to the dynamics of the labour market and changing patterns of work.
"In this regard, we cannot overemphasize the need for comprehensive labour market indicators to facilitate the designing, implementation and evaluation of policies and programmes related to employment creation, income generation, skills development and related decent work policies," he said.
Gapara said the availing of job opportunities and high quality of the wider populace were the hallmarks of Zimbabwe's National Vision 2030 as well as the global Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 and the African Development Agenda 2063.
ZimStat has been conducting LFCLS surveys every five years since 1988.The 2019 LFCLS survey results are the latest in this series of five year cycle.
In the key findings of the 2019 LFCLS survey results, the total number of employed persons was 2.9 million, unemployment rate was 16 percent, male unemployment rate was 16 percent, female unemployment rate 17 percent, combined rate of unemployment and potential labour force 50 percent, share of formal sector employment being at 32 percent and share of employment in the informal plus household sectors is at 68 percent.
