More Men Employed in 2015 Say SIB Statisticians

The latest unemployment figures released by the Statistical Institute of Belize indicate that there are presently more men who are unemployed than there are women without jobs.  Over the past twelve months, a total of five thousand new jobs have been created; approximately four thousand of them are filled by men. 

Dr. Leopold Perriott, Director General, SIB

Dr. Leopold Perriott

“There are fifteen thousand, nine hundred and seven persons that are unemployed in September and that’s down, you notice?  That’s down from last year September.  Males: six thousand, six hundred and thirty-two males unemployed.  Females: nine thousand, two hundred and seventy-five females unemployed.”

Reporter

“What does the U and the D stand for?  I apologize.”

Leopold Perriott

“Up and down.  So the males from last September, September 2014.  The number of males that are unemployed is up a little bit and the number of females is down a little bit.”

Reporter

“Where are the females finding jobs?  Are those the call centers?”

Leopold Perriott

“I don’t have that analysis, you know, but what I can say is that the number of jobs that the females are taking up are much less than the males.  So, for example, when you look at what is being produced in the jobs it’s over five thousand jobs that are being produced over this last year.  A little bit over four thousand are males, these new jobs.  And one thousand, eight hundred or whatever it is are the females.  I rather suspect that they find their work in the services but that has to be checked. We consider persons who are unemployed, who are jobless for twenty-seven weeks or more to be long term unemployed persons and it turns out that about sixty-one percent of unemployed persons are long term unemployed persons.  Well over fifty percent of the unemployed people are in fact long term unemployed persons, the numbers are going down a little bit.”