By Lynford Simpson, Parliamentary ReporterJUST OVER 170,000 Jamaicans were unemployed during 2002, a 2.8 per cent increase over the 165,400 who were out of work in 2001.
The latest statistics are contained in the 2000 edition of the Economic and Social Survey Jamaica, a publication of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ). The document was recently tabled in Parliament.
It noted that women accounted for 61.4 per cent or 104, 500 of the unemployed labour force, and that the average unemployment rate, which was 15.0 per cent in 2001 and 15.1 per cent in 2002, had remained stable.
According to the survey, the gender differential in unemployment rates continued to prevail, with the female unemployment rate at 20.7 per cent being almost twice as high as the male rate at 10.6 per cent. The youth unemployment rate was 30.8 per cent, while the adult unemployment rate was 10.3 per cent.
"Further desegregation of the unemployment data by the major demographic groups indicated high male and female youth unemployment rates, and in general higher female rates for each category when compared with the males," the document said.
It said an average of 47,100 females in the labour force between the age of 14 and 24, were unemployed (39.7 per cent). This represents an improvement over the previous year when the female youth unemployment rate was 44.2 per cent.
"The male youth unemployment rate also improved from 24.6 per cent in 2001 to 23.6 per cent in 2002."
Adults, aged 25 and over were less fortunate in the labour market, as both the male and female adult unemployment rates increased. Unemployment levels for adult females increased to 14.8 per cent from 14.2 per cent, while unemployment levels for adult males increased to 6.6 per cent from 5.9 per cent.
Not many persons seem to be searching for work as the job seeking rate among labour force participants increased by a mere 0.2 percentage points to total 6.4 per cent.
According to the PIOJ, "given the gender differential in the unemployment rate it is not surprising that the female job-seeking rate was also higher than the male rate, an annual average of 8.4 per cent compared with 4.8 per cent.
