Industry

In the 2010 PHC, information on industry was collected on the main products or services produced during the seven days before the census night. Table 4.4 shows employed population 15 years and older by industry and sex. More than a third (35.2%) which is the highest percentage of the total population who worked were in the wholesale and retail, repair of motor vehicles and motor cycles category.

Of this number, females constituted the highest proportion (41.2%), indicating that females prefer working in those industries. More males (8.3%) worked in the construction industry compared to females (0.3%). In general, informal sector employment is predominant in the Metropolis. This means that the informal sector has the potential to reduce unemployment in the Metropolis.

Employment Status

Employment status referred to the position of a person in the establishment where he/she currently works or previously worked. In the 2010 PHC, eight employment status categories were provided: employee, self-employed without employees, self-employed with employees, casual worker, contributing family worker, apprentice and domestic employee (house-help).

From Table 4.5, employees constituted 35.2 percent while about 48 percent were self-employed without employees. Male employees were about twice (47.2%) that of their female counterparts (23.7%). Among the self-employed without employees, 59.8 percent were females while 36.1 percent were males, indicating that more females are self-employed without employees.

On self-employed with employee(s), males (8.2%) were slightly above females (6.6%). Females were more than twice (3.0%) the number of males (1.4%) who were engaged in contributing to family work. Similarly, more females (1.1%) than males (0.7%) were engaged as domestic employee (House help).This is expected because females are mostly associated with family or domestic work (Tanle and Awusabo-Asare, 2007).

Figure 4.2 shows population distribution of employment status by sex. More males (47.2%) compared to females (23.7%) were employed in the Metropolis in 2010. On the other hand, a higher percentage of females (59.8%) than males (36.1 %) were engaged in self-employed without employee. Also, females constituted the majority in both contributing to family work (3.0%) and domestic employees (House helps) (1.1%). It can be concluded that females are mostly engaged in employments which do not require employees.

Employment Sector

From Table 4.6, the private informal sector is the main avenue for employment (74.0%) in the Metropolis followed by the private formal sector (16.9%), indicating that the private informal and formal sectors (90.9%) were the major employers in the Metropolis. Higher proportion of females (82.9%) than males (64.7%) were employed in the private informal sector.

The high proportion of the working population in the informal sector could be due to inadequate employment opportunities in the formal sector couple with the fact that some people have low educational and professional training which do not meet the requisite qualifications for employment in the formal sector, particularly females (Tanle and Awusabo-Asare, 2007). The proportion of males (9.8%) employed in the public sector was higher than that of females (5.9%). This could be attributed to the fact that generally illiteracy level is higher among females than males in Ghana (GSS, 2012).

Figure 4.3 shows the employed population 15 years and older by employment sector. It is clear from the results that the private informal sector absorbed majority of the workforce in the Metropolis (74.0%). This is followed by the private formal sector with 16.9 percent and then the public sector with 7.8 percent. This implies that the private sector is the main avenue for employment in the Metropolis.