The overall development of any district is based on the production of goods and services. Although all persons, irrespective of age and sex, utilize goods and services, only a section of the total population produces them. Generally, the larger the employed population, the more wealth is created leading to improvement in the general welfare of the people. This chapter presents information on the activity status, size and structure of the labour force, and its distribution by occupation, industry, sector of employment and employment status.

Economic Activity Status

Table 4.1 presents information on the economic activity status of the population by sex. The findings indicate that, the economically active persons constitute 77.1 percent for both sexes compared with the economically not active population which stands at 22.9 percent. While the employed population of both sexes is 97.6 percent, the unemployed category forms 2.4 percent. Among the economically not active, those in full time education form 49.3 percent.

In terms of sex, males who are economically active constitute 78.4 percent which is higher than their female counterparts’ (75.8%). Similarly, males who are employed form 97.9 percent, which is slightly higher than that of females (97.4%). The analysis further reveals that the unemployed population constitutes 2.1 percent males and among females they form 2.6 percent. For the economically not active population, males form 21.6 percent while the share of females is 24.2. Further analysis revealed that a significant variation exists between males and females who are engaged in full time education. Table 4.1 shows that males in full time education constitute 62.8 percent relative to 37.7 percent for females.

A relatively small percentage of those employed who were not working at the time of the Census did voluntary work without pay; and there is no variation between males and females. Table 4.1 shows that majority of the unemployed were first time job seekers. Almost two out of every three unemployed persons in the District have never worked before.

Disaggregation of the data by sex did not reveal any noticeably variation with respect to the economically not active population. It is observed that the population pursuing full time education form majority (49.3%) followed by those who performed household chores and persons considered too young or old to work. On the other hand, a relatively higher percentage of females (32.0%) than males (13.7%) performed household chores or are too young or old to work. In these two categories of economically not active population, the percentage for females is more than twice that of their male

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Table 4.2 shows the activity status of the population 15 years and older by sex and age. For all the age groups, about three-quarters (75.3%) of the population are employed, 1.8 percent are unemployed and the economically not active constitute 22.9 percent. The data shows a gradual rise from 40.4 percent at age 15-19 for the employed, and then peaks at 94.3 percent at age 45-49 and gradually decreases as age increases.

Between age 15-19, the proportion of the economically not active is slightly more than half (58.0%). This is because, these groups of people are expected to be in school. This proportion decreases sharply from 31.6 percent at age 20-24 to as low as 4.9 percent at age 45-49. The data by males and females show similar patterns. Male-female differentials show that for all the age groups, there are slightly more employed males (76.7%) than females (73.9%). However, the proportion of females who are unemployed exceeds their male counterparts for the age groups. A similar trend is also identified with the economically not active population (Table 4.2).