The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has disclosed that between the first and second quarters of 2022, food insecurity dropped by 7.0 percentage points.

Multidimensional poverty also dropped by 2.6% while unemployment rate increased by 0.5 percentage points within the period.

The quarterly Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) report released on Thursday September 1, 2022, showed that about 390,000 persons aged 15 years and older who were unemployed in the first quarter of 2022 remained unemployed in the second quarter.

The report also showed that between the first and second quarters of 2022, about 445,000 persons aged 15 years and older, outside the labor force in Q1, joined the number of unemployed persons.

In a presentation, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, disclosed that the Savannah Region has the highest percent of triple burdened persons (8.2%) which is more than twice the national average of 3.2%.

The data released covered multidimensional poverty, food insecurity, and labour statistics from the first and second quarters of 2022. The release was chaired by Professor Kwaku Appiah-Adu, Senior Advisor to the Vice President.

In his remarks, he commended the Ghana Statistical Service for conducting the AHIES which is generating timely and relevant data for policy and planning.

“As a country, we have great challenges and great opportunities; I am in no doubt that 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”.
Professor Kwaku Appiah-Adu

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%).

Gender inequalities in the labour force

The report also highlighted gender inequalities in the labour force, indicating that unadjusted gender pay gap in Q1 was 37.3%, with males earning a mean hourly pay of GH¢11.00 and females GH¢6.90.

Other highlights from the release are that 49.1% of persons in Ghana are moderately food insecure, 12.3% are severely food insecure and 44.1% are multidimensional poor.

Health insurance coverage is the leading contributor to multidimensional poverty with about 14 million persons in Ghana not currently having active health insurance coverage.

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.

Thus, it is possible for the Statistical Service to present statistics on labour transitions for the first time.

The survey was officially launched on Wednesday, December 22, 2021 and Field Officers were deployed to the field on 31st December, 2021. AHIES is a survey whose main objective is to obtain data to estimate quarterly and annual household final consumption expenditure to support the compilation of quarterly and annual GDP by the expenditure approach.

The survey will enhance the sources of data for GDP computation, produce data to support monitoring of targets under 12 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, provide indicators on the welfare of persons in Ghana and generate quarterly labour and poverty statistics.

The AHIES is a panel survey that will provide important data on labour mobility and welfare mobility to better understand some of the dynamics in the labour market and how households move in and out of poverty. Some of the key macroeconomic indicators to be generated from the AHIES include quarterly GDP, regional GDP, quarterly unemployment, graduate unemployment, underemployment, and inequality.

The survey will further provide indicators on welfare such as consumption expenditure poverty, multidimensional poverty and food security.