Employment
Editorial
The Statistical Bulletin of the Bureau of Statistics dated June l997 contains no unemployment figures. It does, however, contain a Table on employment in the public sector. This shows that in l985, the first year given, employment in the public sector was 75,947, 28686 of this in the central government and 47,26l in the rest of the public sector. In l996, this had fallen to 42,l22, l2,393 in central government and 29,729 in the rest of the public sector. This would have been due to a number of factors, in particular the Structural Adjustment Programme which had led to government seeking to reduce its deficit by curbing the overmanning that existed in many ministries and corporations as a result of the jobs for the boys policy that had previously existed and had led to widespread featherbedding. Employment in sugar was down to 20,492 in l996 (it was 23,725 in l987) and in the depressed bauxite industry to 2,648. The last official unemployment figure available is the ll.7 % shown in the nationwide Household Income and Expenditure Survey in l992. There is, however, now under way a Labour Force Survey, started in July last year and scheduled to be completed in July this year. A total of 8,200 households, 5% of the total households in Guyana, is being interviewed and enumerated. The last Labour Force Survey was 20 years ago. The current survey will provide information on economic activity status, levels of wages and salaries, availability of skills, levels of education and size of the labour force. The economy has shown growth since l992 but it must be doubted whether the unemployment situation has improved. In sugar, for example, production is up but employment is down. There is also the problem of underemployment, for example in sugar during the off seasons. This survey is long overdue. When completed, it will be of assistance to the government (in making policy decisions and dealing with issues like the standard of living and poverty alleviation), to businessmen, the trade union movement and others. It will highlight skills available (and shortages of such skills due to emigration and low wage levels), increases in self-employment (many who have dropped out of public sector employment have re-deployed themselves into their own activities of one kind - taxis, minibuses, vending - or another), multiple job holders and the number of women in employment. As the Bureau of Statistics had indicated in a press release last year announcing the survey, the impact of all these issues of employment, income and living standards could not be measured or analysed without the relevant data. The survey will be central to the institution of a labour market information system and will be updated every six months. 
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