Businesses Keeping Staff Small According to Survey

Jefte Ochaeta

The two-stage survey also looked at the distribution of employment among the businesses surveyed. The most recent rate of unemployment is about eight percent and has been trending down for some time, but most businesses can be categorized as “small”, as according to the statisticians, who found that not many businesses employ a lot of people.

Jefte Ochaeta, Statistician I, Statistical Institute of Belize

“About eighty-nine percent of businesses engaged in agriculture, forestry and fisheries told us that they employ ten persons or less. In the manufacturing industry it is similar: they told us that they employ ten or less persons. While in construction activities, about thirty-nine percent of the businesses told us that they employ eleven to thirty persons. When we look at the service and major industries, the wholesale and retail activities, ninety-six percent of businesses engaged in this activity employ ten or less persons, and that’s exactly what we would have been looking at, because if you go to a supermarket, maybe you might find fifteen persons working there, the most, in a big supermarket.”

Curiously, according to Ochaeta, the Institute found that some media houses, which fall under information and communication businesses, were reluctant to participate in the survey.