Namibia Labour Force Survey 2016

The first full-scale Labour Force Survey (LFS) in Namibia was carried out in 1997 under the National Household Survey Programme, launched after the Government endorsed the Five Year Plan for the Development of Statistics in 1993. Since then, five Labour Force Surveys (1997, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012) have been conducted in the country at more or less regular intervals of every four years.
The Labour Force Survey of 2016 was the fourth annual labour force survey to be conducted by the Namibia Statistics Agency. The first, second and third labour force surveys were conducted in 2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively. Although the LFS 2015 was included as a module in the 2015/16 NHIES, there was no official publication of the labour force statistics in 2015 as the resulting outcome was used as a pilot for determining the viability of producing quarterly labour force statistics. The pilot did not produce on average comparable results to previous years, hence the gap.
Like previous labour force surveys, the 2016 survey was conducted with the objective of generating key socioeconomic indicators for assessment of labour market conditions in Namibia.” The survey covers all aspects of people’s work, including employment, unemployment, underemployment, occupation, industry, education and training needed to equip them for work, wages and salaries.
This document presents results of key indicators of the survey. It is hoped that the release will be of assistance to planners, policy makers, researchers and the public in general and provide a quick glance of standard employment and unemployment indicators for accessing Namibia’s efforts in meeting its various developmental goals in particular, those relating to job creations.
This report covers wide-range of topics to meet the demands of users of labour statistics at national level, as well as SADC, AU, and ILO levels. For example, a page with a summary of SADC Minimum Indicators is included, for a quick glance of standard employment and unemployment indicators for accessing Namibia’s efforts in achieving its developmental goals relating job creations.
Moreover, the anonymised micro-level and Meta data for this report will be available via the NSA website at http:// www.nsa.org.na to enable the public and individuals who are interested in doing further analysis to have access to data. In this way, the country will derive full benefits from the resources that were allocated to conduct the survey.

NSA therefore would like to express sincere gratitude and appreciation for all the support that was received from various stakeholders who contributed to the implementation of this survey. Particularly, our gratitude goes to the users and producers who provided inputs to survey data collection instruments.
Furthermore, our appreciation goes to the household members who participated in the survey to provide the required information. Our appreciation also goes to Regional and Local leaders and the general public for their support and cooperation to ensure that the importance of the surveys was explained to their respective communities.
Also,We would like to address our sincere thanks to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for their technical inputs to the labour force survey 2016 in Namibia. The technical advice of StatsSA is also highly appreciated and this good cooperation should continue.
Finally,NSA would like to thank the Government of the Republic of Namibia for its continued funding of this survey. Basic findings and indicators from this survey provide fresh understanding of the prevailing labour market situation in the country. These findings should provide a basis for better planning, policy formulation and labour-related discussions by all concerned.
We hope that the users will find this report informative and use it in their planning for the development of the country.