The major industry in which employed persons work, as shown in table 4.4, is “agriculture, forestry and fishery” (87.4%). This is high compared to that of the Northern Region value of 73.5 percent in the same sector. The next is manufacturing (5.0%), followed by “wholesale and retail; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles” with 3.5 percent; and “accommodation and food service activities” (1.4%). The proportion of the rest of the industries is below two percent.

The Agriculture, forestry and fishery remains the major industry in the District for both males (90.8%) and females (84.2%). Other industries sum up to less than ten percent for males and fifteen percent for females.

Employment Status

Employment status is understood to mean the status of a person in the establishment where he/she currently works or previously worked (Ghana Statistical Service, 2010). The employment status categories identified include employee, self-employed without employees, self-employed with employees, casual worker, contributing family worker, apprentice, and domestic employee (house help).

Table 4.5 presents an analysis of the employment status of persons 15 years and older in the Tolon District. Persons who are “self-employed without employee(s)” is the highest (57.4%), followed by “contributing family workers” (35.1%), “Self-employed with employee(s)” (2.7%) with the lowest being other forms of employment (0.3%).

Table 4.5 further highlights that, the highest employment status is recorded by “Self-employed without employee(s)” in both the males (61.6%) and the females (53.3%), followed by “Contributing family worker” in both cases (Males [29.5%] and females [40.5%]), and identifies “other employment” as the least (0.3%) in each case of the sexes.

Employment Sector

Employed population 15 years and older by employment sector and sex is analyzed in Figure 4.2. The private informal sector constitutes about 97 percent of the employed population, followed by the public sector (Government) with less than two percent, and other sectors recording below one percent. Each of the other sectors forms less than one percent. This means that the strength of the district’s economy lies in the informal private sector. There is therefore the need to design programmes and strategies that will not only help boost activities in that sector, but also capture those people in the Assembly’s tax net so as to enhance revenue.

The Table 4.6 also gives the employed population 15 years and older by employment sector and sex. The data shows that, the private informal sector is the highest for both sexes (male [98.2%] and female [96.2%]). The public sector (government) is the next highest in both cases of the male (2.8%) and female (0.7%). It can therefore be seen that, male public sector workers are than public sector female workers.