Comparison over time percent

62 Figure 5.6: Proportion of the working-age population that is not gainfully employed, by season, and sector in percentages

5.3.2 Comparison over time

In section 5.3.1 we presented labour market indicators in relation to participation, employment, underemployment and unemployment in 2013-14. How have these indicators changed over the years? Unfortunately, the labour market indicators generated using ALCS 2013-14 data are not strictly comparable with those generated using NRVA 2007-08 and NRVA 2011-12. There are several reasons for this. First, the change in definitions makes it difficult to compare indicators based on NRVA 2007-08 and ALCS 2013- 14. For example, NRVA 2008-07 used a reference period of a month, for a working age population of at least 16 years. In contrast, ALCS 2013-14 uses a reference period of a week, for a working age population of at least 14 years. Second, even though NRVA 2011-12 and ALCS 2013-14 use the same definitions, the same reference period, and the same minimum threshold for the working age, NRVA 2011-12 left out some tactical questions that affected the coverage of the employed. Nevertheless, it is possible to use the micro-data of NRVA 2007-08 to generate indicators for labour force participation, employment and unemployment in order to compare with the indicators of ALCS 2013-14 if we adjust the data from NRVA 2007-08 and make some assumptions as follows. First, we restrict the working age population of ALCS 2013-14 to those above 16 years of age as in NRVA 2007-08 and generate the relevant indicators for 2013-14. Thereafter, we adjust the NRVA 2007- 08 indicators based on a month’s reference period to a week as in ALCS 2013-14. The adjustment is made by using the weekmonth ratio of the same indicators estimated from the data of NRVA 2011-12, which, unlike NRVA 2007-08 and ALCS 2013-14, included both reference periods. NRVA 2007-08 data cannot be used to generate underemployment figures as two critical questions relating to willingness and ability to take on additional hours of work, if they were offered were excluded from the older survey. The results are set out in Table 5.4 . It is interesting to note that the LFPR is quite similar in both surveys, the one for 2013-14 being slightly higher. This suggests that the comparison is of some value, despite methodological issues and several necessary assumptions. The biggest change is within the active population, with a large shift from working to unemployed. The direction was to be expected even though 23 17 25 20 15 22 19 15 20 18 24 16 27 26 5 10 15 20 25 30 National Urban Rural Kuchi P er ce n tag e Winter Spring Summer Autumn 63 the change appears rather large. This is because the economy has experienced a substantial slowdown in growth constrained by persistent uncertainty surrounding political and security transition, increased levels of conflict and a downturn in aid. The change is also more pronounced in urban areas than in rural areas, and is insignificant for Kuchis. This urban-rural-Kuchi pattern is again plausible, given the reduction of foreign aid, foreign organisations and troops, which is most likely to have first affected urban residents’ employment, and secondly, and often more indirectly, rural employment; the Kuchi, being much less involved in the paid market economy were probably the least affected. Also, people who depended on the employment related to foreign presence may also be better able to be – for some time at least – unemployed, rather than underemployed. With time, however, we may expect the number of underemployed to rise if the urban economy fails to pick up and re-employ the currently unemployed.

5.3.3 Characteristics of the employed and underemployed