The three industries of employment stand out as the major employers in the North Gonja District. These are agriculture forestry and fishing which employs more than 80 percent of all employed persons 15 years and older in the District; manufacturing engaging about six percent; and wholesale and retail, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles which also records about six percent of the employed persons in the District.

The remaining industries engage quite small number of persons 15 years and older in the District. Table 4.4 further shows a situation of male-dominance in most of the industries of employment in the District. The few exceptions include accommodation and food service activities; activities of households as employers, undifferentiated goods - and services - producing activities of households for own use; and wholesale and retail, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles that respectively were dominated by 93.5 percent, 87.7 percent and 77.4 percent females in the North Gonja District.

Employment status

The figure shows that 70.2 percent of the employees are males while 29.8 percent are females. The figure also reveals that more than half (58.3%) of the casual workers are females with less than half (41.7%) of them as males. The data further indicate that domestic employment is represented by 51.1 percent males and 48.9 percent females. The proportion of females in the contributing family worker category is 61.9 percent while their male counterparts make up 38.1 percent, which suggests that more females than males work for their families in the district.

Employment Sector

Figure 4.4 illustrates that the private informal sector employs 98 percent of the population, with the public sector and private formal sector employing one percent each of the employed population of the North Gonja District. This clearly is an indication that the private informal sector is the single most important sector of employment in the North Gonja district.