Industry refers to the type of product produced or services rendered at the respondent’s workplace. Information was collected only on the main product produced or service rendered in the establishment during the reference period. Table 4.4 shows the employed population 15 years and older by industry and sex. From the Table, Agriculture, forestry and fishing, constitute the largest industry employing about two out of five persons of the workforce aged 15 years and above (44.1%) in the District.

Other major industries offering employment are mining and quarrying (18.2 %), wholesale and retail trading including repair of motor vehicles and motor cycles (13.6 %) and manufacturing (7.3%). The presence of gold deposits in the area could be responsible for mining and quarrying recording the second highest percentages in industry in the District. For the sexes, majority of employed males are into agriculture, forestry and fishing (45.2%), followed by mining and quarrying (28.5%). Next is wholesaling, retail and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles 6.0 percent. For females, the majority (42.9%) are into agriculture, followed by wholesale and retail trading (22.2%) and mining and quarrying (6.6%).

Industries such as construction and security are dominated by males whilst service and related industries are dominated by females. There are no extraterritorial organizations and bodies in the District. Similarly, there is no person employed in real estate activities. Information and communication industry is also low with 0.1 percent this could be due to fact that only few of such exist in the District.

Employment Status

Table 4.5 presents population 15 years and older by employment status and sex. The employment status data presented in the Table shows that, the major employment status is self-employed without employees constituting 62.3 percent. The corresponding proportion for females is 67.0 percent compare to males 58.2 percent, confirming the usual observation that females are more likely to be self-employed without employees than males in the country (Ghana Statistical service, 2005). The self-employed with employees accounts for 3.1 percent of employment in the District. The proportion of males who are self-employed with employees was 3.7 percent while that of females is 2.4 percent.

The proportion of employed persons who are employees in the District is 15.8 percent. Relatively large proportions of males (23.4%) are employees compared to females (7.3%). There are more apprentices in the District and figures also show there are more female than male apprentices. Contributing family workers is 12.5 percent but it is higher for female family workers (17.6%) compared to males (8.0%).

Employment Sector

Table 4.6 shows employed population 15 years and older by employment sector and sex. Employment sector refers to the sector in which a person works. Table 4.6 shows that the private informal sector is the largest employer in the District with 89.1 percent. The proportion of females working in the private informal sector is 95.4 percent while that of males is 83.6 percent. It shows the dominance of females in the private informal sector.



This could also mean that majority of women have low levels of educational and professional training, since the informal sectors do not require high levels of formal education.

Among the workforce 7.5 percent is employed in the private formal sector and more males (12.0%) than females (2.4%). The public sector, covering Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, employed 2.9 percent of the total employed population in 2010. The proportions of males and females employed in the public sector are 3.8 percent and 1.9 percent respectively in the District. Because of the absence of international organizations in the District (Table 4.6), only 8 out of the 66,626 were engaged in this sector.

Thus majority of the population 15 years and older work in the private sector (Private informal and formal sectors). A few are in the other sectors like the public sector.