When numbers don�t make sense

Friday, August 18, 2017

Statistics Botswana says unemployment is declining yet the situation on the ground suggests the opposite

Statistics Botswana (SB) recently released the country’s unemployment figures, extrapolated from the Botswana Multi Topic Household Survey (BMTHS) of 2015/16, which show that the national jobless rate has fallen to 17.6%.

While some people see this as a welcome development to the country, whose unemployment rate once hit a record high of 26.2% in 2008, others question the figure or its significance, saying it might not reflect the realities of Botswana’s job market.

On the ground, it seems that job prospects for university graduates have declined, with fewer and fewer people finding full-time employment after completing higher education.

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