Lalitpur, Jan. 27: The findings of Nepal Labour Force Survey 1998/99, released today, shows unemployment and underemployment rate much lower than claimed by previous studies related to labour situation in the country.
For the first time in Nepal, the survey recognises women’s work which are “economically meaningful activities, though not necessarily in the market sphere” as economic activities at par with international definition and standards recommended by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The survey estimates Nepal’s unemployment rate at 1.8 per cent, which is less than 200,000 people aged 15 and over were unemployed during the survey year. Unemployment in urban areas runs at 7.4 per cent, but in rural areas it is only 1.2 per cent with Eastern Terai cities having the highest unemployment percentage. Kathmandu valley also has a high unemployment of 10 per cent. The national youth unemployment rate is 12 per cent.
The Nepal Living Standard Survey (NLSS) of 1996 puts unemployment rate at about 5 per cent.
Senior Labour Specialist Robert J. Pamber said that the 1.8 per cent unemployment rate was an “expected” phenomenon, which he cautioned, was a “very bleak” picture of economic scenario for a developing country at Nepal’s stage where “people cannot afford to remain unemployment” even for a subsistence living.
In addition to the unemployed, the survey classifies some 4 per cent of the labour force as having work but being in time-related underemployment.
Like the previous studies, this survey also recognises agriculture sector as the largest employer, yet the labour force absorbed by the sector is lower than the earlier estimations. According to the freshly released NLFS report about 7.1 million of over 15 population, which makes 73 per cent of the work force, are employed in agriculture sector. The National Census 1991 put the percentage at 81 per cent. Outside agriculture, 1.7 million people work in the informal sector compared to only 600,000 people hold white-colour jobs.
The NLFS considers people with 40 plus hours per week as fully employed. The press release distributed during the data dissemination seminar claims that the latest definitions has wider coverage of economic activities that incorporates traditionally unrecognised activities like water fetching and firewood collection also within the boundary of production.
The unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent as given by NLSS 1996 would have gone slightly to 5.2 per in 1998/99 if the 1996 definitions had been used, and on the contrary, underemployment rate estimated at 47 per cent in 1996 would have dropped to 32 per cent in the survey year, the press release says.
The survey estimates that 41 per cent of children of the 5 to 14 year age group are economically active.
A special feature of the NLFS is its more prominent gender sensitivity than any of the previous studies. The survey collects additional information about various non-work activities to measure the contribution of men, women and children to household maintenance. According to the survey, men and women spend roughly the same amount of time doing the work activities with 216 million hours a week for men and 197 million hours for women, a disproportionate share of household maintenance activities are done by women. Women spend 132 million hours a week on these activities, compared to only 25 million hours spent by men. The similar imbalance is maintained between girls and boys as well. The survey says girls aged 5 to 14 years spend 12 million hours a week on household maintenance where as boys’ share of household maintenance contribution is only 3 million hours.
Dr. Meena Acharya expressed content that the NLFS is comparatively more gender sensitive. “The finding may help make corrections to the plans drawn to increase employment opportunities that went wrong because the earlier studies made women’s works invisible,” she said.