Earlier this month, the Statistical Institute of Belize released the results of its labour force survey which was conducted in September and it shows the unemployment rate edging up to the teens. April’s survey showed 8.5% unemployment, while September showed it at 12.1%. Now bear in mind, these are just monthly snapshots and neither is the annual unemployment average. But still it is a telling statistic and Glenn Avilez the Director of the Statistical Institute explained what accounts for the sharp downturn.
Glenn Avilez, Director – Statistical Institute
“We released our labor force results for September 2007 survey which showed that 12.1% of our labor force was unemployed in September. This compares with 8.5% in April. You might ask there is almost a four percentage point jump, which works out to almost five thousand more people, 4,600 I think it is added to the unemployment line. There are various reasons for this. We have our major industries, sugar which was in full swing in April, and we have our citrus and our tourism sector which were in full swing in April, they are now in their lull. During the month of September there is no harvesting, no transportation to the factories. So that would certainly account for much of the addition to the unemployment list.
So what we have no is a low and a high and so we will expect that for the other months, it varies between those two points. But Jules 14,800 looking for a job is a lot for a country our size. The percentage will say different things to different people but when you look at the absolute number of almost 15,000 people not having a job, that is an issue of concern.”
The work force is estimated at 122,500 persons. The survey says that unemployment was lowest in Orange Walk at 10% and highest in Toledo at 16.4%. Other figures released by the Statistical Institute in December show that oil exports and earnings climbed in 2007. According to Statistical Institute of Belize statistics, at the end of October 2007, exports totaled a value of $110.89 million. That is $35 million dollars more than for the same period in the previous year. Read more statistics at the Statistical Institute of Belize Website.
