The survey has also indicated a rise in youth unemployment figures from 38% to 41%.
Over one hundred thousand Gambian children are subjected to child labour, a significant number of which are working in dangerous conditions, according to the 2018 Labour Force Survey.
The survey which was launched at Paradise Suite recently was conducted by the Gambia Bureau of Statistic in partnership with the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment (MOTIE).
“On Child work and Labour: Overall, there are 495,717 children of age 7-14 years of which 249, 912 are females and 245,805 are males. The findings of the survey show that the proportion of the male children working is 74.7% and 25.3% are females. Children working in hazardous environment is 32.1%,” the report stated.
- Total estimated population of The Gambia is 2.3 million, where 1.3 million, are aged 15 years and above and the 1 million aged 0-14 yrs.
- The result shows that the Working Age Population is 1,256,859 persons.
- The Labour Force Participation Rate is 57 %; 43% are outside the labour force.
Funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through the Entrepreneurship and Private Sector Development Project, the objective of the survey was to obtain comprehensive data on the status of the Labour Market prevailing in Gambia.
The specific objectives of the survey includes obtaining information on Labour Force Participation Rates (LFPR); employment to population ratios; employed population; unemployed population; hours of work; employment in the informal economy; outside the labour force rates; education attainment and illiteracy; income from employment; and number of child labourers.
Meanwhile, the survey has also found an incredible increment on youth unemployment figures and scary figures of youth migration to Europe. Youth unemployment which was at 38% now increased to 41%.
“Youth unemployment rate is 41.5%; 56.8% of our youth are Not in Employment, Education and Training (NEET). There are 54 % of youth in the urban areas and 45.9 % in the rural areas that were NEET. Most of the discouraged youth job seekers live in the urban areas (67.2 %) than in the rural (32.8 %) areas,” the survey stated.
“The findings of the survey show that 61,515 persons emigrated, of which 62.6 % used irregular means / “back way”, 22,948 of the people who used the irregular means of migration are from the urban areas, while (15,543) are from the rural areas. Brikama had the highest number of emigrants with 13,768 and 7,698 who used the irregular and regular ways of migration, followed by Kanifing with 8,291 and 5,396 respectively. On reasons for migration, 21,294 were reportedly not employed and this was the main reason for migration for both the irregular migrants (59.6%) and the regular migrants (21.6%).”
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