By Elorm Desewu
Job availability growth in the country has declined significantly in the third quarter of 2020 relative to what was observed in the third quarter of 2019.
For the third quarter of 2020, a total of 6,880 jobs were advertised compared with 9,485 for the third quarter of 2019, indicating a decline of 27.5 percent year-on-year. Similarly, the number of job vacancies advertised dipped by 28.2 percent from 9,582 recorded for the second quarter of 2020. The decrease in the number of jobs advertised reflects the difficulties faced by businesses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Services Sector maintained its dominance as the leading job-providing sector in the economy, accounting for 80.2 percent of total job adverts recorded during the third quarter of 2020. This compares with a share of 82.2 percent recorded in the third quarter of 2019.
Industry followed with a share of 16.1 percent up from 15.2% in the third quarter of 2019, while the Agriculture Sector accounted for 3.7 percent of the job adverts during the period, compared with 2.7 percent of total job adverts recorded for the corresponding quarter of 2019.
Further analysis revealed that the main requirements for skilled employees were tertiary education qualification(s) and a minimum of three years’ working experience. This category, classified as Professionals and Technicians, collectively accounted for 52.3 percent of total jobs advertised during the third quarter of 2020, relative to 41.5 percent recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2019.
This was followed by the categories classified as Sales & Other Service Workers (29.5% in Q3:2020 vs. 38.0% in Q3:2019), Artisans & Machine Operators (11.0% vs. 10.6%), Secretarial & Clerical Staff (5.0% vs. 6.6%) and ‘Others’ (2.2% vs. 3.4%).
