380,000 Ghanaians face food insecurity and unemployment

A quarterly Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey report released by the Ghana Statistical Service said between the first and second quarter of 2022, food insecurity dropped by 7.0 percentage points while multidimensional poverty dropped by 2.6 per cent.

About 380,000 Ghanaians in the labour force are multidimensionally poor, they also face food insecurity and unemployment rate has increased by 0.5 percentage points.

The Savannah Region has the highest percentage of triple burdened persons” (8.2%) which is more than twice the national average of 3.2 per centage.

The findings indicated that about 390,000 persons 15 years and older unemployed in quarter 1 remained unemployed in quarter 2 of 2022 while between the first and second quarters of 2022, about 445,000 persons 15 years and older outside the labour force joined the number of unemployed persons.

The labour statistics also indicated that about two-thirds of the employed population are engaged in vulnerable employment with significant variation across urban areas (56.4%) and rural (80%).

The report highlighted gender inequalities in the labour force indicating that unadjusted gender pay gap in the first quarter is 37.3 percent, with males earning a mean hourly pay of GH¢11.00 and females GH¢6.90.

Other highlights from the report indicated 49.1% of Ghanaians are moderately food insecure, 12.3% are severely food insecure and 44.1% are multidimensional poor.

The comprehensive quarterly labour force, food insecurity and multi-dimensional poverty report obtained will support the government in evidence-based decision-making and policy design of its programmes and projects for development and a more robust outlook of the Ghanaian economy.

The Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) is the first nationally representative high-frequency household panel survey in Ghana.

The AHIES is being conducted to obtain quarterly and annual data on household final consumption expenditure and a wide scope of demographic, economic and welfare variables including statistics on labour, food security, multidimensional poverty and health status for research, policy, and planning.

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