This chapter discusses the economic activities of persons 15 years and older in the Awutu Senya East. The nature, type and size of the labour force are critical factors in the production of goods and services. For economic growth, labour force participation is a key driver.

The information on labour force is also used to formulate employment policies, to determine training needs and to calculate the expected working life of the male and female population as well as the rate of accession to retirement from economic activity. Emphasis is given to the type of activity namely economically active which includes the employed and the unemployed, economically not active, main occupation, industry and employment status of individuals in the district.

Economic activity status

Table 4.1 presents the summary information on the economic activity status of persons 15 years and older . The table shows that three quarters (75.1%) of the population are economically active with one quarter (24.9%) not economically active. In addition, 95.7 percent of the economically active people are employed while 4.3 percent are unemployed.

For the employed category, 95.0 percent are employed and working, 4.7 percent are not working but have jobs to go back to and 0.3% work on a voluntary basis without pay. Of the 4.3 percent unemployed, 41.3 percent haven worked before, are available and seeking for work while 58.7 percent are seeking work for the first time.There exist not much variations between the proportions of males and females who are either economically active, employed or unemployed than half (52.3%) of the economically not active are in full time education while nearly two fifths (18.8%) do home duties.

More than three fifths (62.0%) of the economically not active males are also in full time education compared to the corresponding 44.2 percent proportion for females. On the other hand, twice as many females (24.5%) as males (12.0%) do home duties. The proportion of females too young or too old to work (17.2%) is also more than twice their male (7.1%) counterparts.

Activity status by sex and age

Table 4.2 presents activity status of the population 15 years and older by sex and age. From the table, 36,601 of the population are employed while 1,628 are unemployed. The economically not active is 12,694. The Table further shows that the highest proportion of employed population (14.9%) are within the age-group 25-29, and the lowest proportion (3.9%) with the age-group 60-64.

The highest proportion of unemployed population (18.4%) is also within the age-group 25-29. For the economically not active population, 51.8 percent are within the age-group 15-19 with as low as 1.1 percent within the age-group 45-49. The highest proportion of employed male population (14.6%) is likewise within the age-group 25-29. The situation is similar for the employed female population. There are more females (6,916) who are economically not active than males (5,778).

Occupation

Occupation refers to the type of work the person is engaged in at the establishment where he/she works Table 4.3 presents the employed population 15 years and older by occupation and sex. The category with the highest proportion in the district is skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers (43.5%). The second largest group is Service and Sales Workers employing 19.8 percent followed by Crafts and Related Trade Workers (19.5%).

Managers and professionals constitute 1.7 percent and 4.0 percent of the total number of employed population respectively. There are more female managers (2.0%) than males (1.7%). Females also dominate in Service and Sales, Craft and Related Trades as well as Elementary Occupations while the males dominate in the rest of the occupations.

Industry

The main industrial activity in the district is Agriculture, forestry and fishing (43.7%). Other industry activities are manufacturing (14.2 %) and wholesale and retail; Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motor Cycles (16.9%). Higher proportions of males (51.6%) than females (37.4%) are into the Agriculture Industry. On the contrary, more females (23.6%) are in the Wholesale and Retail Industry than males (8.7%). Further, a greater percentage of females (10.4%) are in the Accommodation and Food Service activities than males (1.5%). No female is employed in the Information and Communication Industry with men having only 0.2 percent.

Employment status

Figure 4.1 shows the employment status of the  population by sex. The figure indicates that majority of the district’s population are self-employed without employees (71.3%) followed by employees (16.5%) and contributing family workers (6.8%). The figure also shows that the proportions of people who are self-employed (without employees) and contributing family workers are higher for females than males.

Conversely, the proportions of employees, self-employed with employees, casual workers and apprentice are higher for males than females.This may be due to the relatively low levels of females who have acquired educational qualifications given that education is an important requirement for job engagement in the formal sectors of the economy.

Employment Sector

The employed population 15 years and older by employment sector is presented in Figure 4.2. The figure shows that the private informal sector dominates the employment sector in the district employing 91.7 percent of the employed population in the district. This is followed by the private formal sector which engages 4.7 percent of the total employed. The public/government sector, international organizations and the semi-public/parastatal sector together employ less than 4 percent.