Over 80% Ugandans are self-employed - survey

By Gloria Nakajubi

Over 81.5% of Uganda’s working population is self-employed, a new National Household Survey 2012/2013 report  indicates.

The survey findings that were released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) shows that the dominant source of employment is agriculture which takes up about 66.5% of the working population.

Vincent Fred Ssenono, a senior statistician at UBOS said that the trend is generally attributed to the high unemployment levels that have seen most people start up own businesses.

“When someone fails to get a job, they choose to start up their own businesses but these in most cases do not survive and therefore resort to agriculture which has seen so many entrants,” said Ssenono.

The report however, shows a decrease in the number of people engaged in paid employment from 21.5% in 2009/2010 to 18.5% in 2012/2013.

The report further shows a rather shocking detail on the various forms of labour the different gender groups are involved in.

According to the report, more women are engaged in care activities whereas their male counterparts are more engaged in economic activities. This trend can therefore be attributed to income inequality between males and females.

Statistics show that poverty levels dropped from 24.5% in 2009/2010 to 22% in 2012/2013 nationally which trend has been attributed to the improvement in agricultural productivity especially in central rural and the western rural areas.

“Previously, the contribution of agriculture to the country’s GDP has been on a downward slope but recently it registered an increment which directly affected the poverty trends in the areas engaged in agriculture,” said Ssenono.

Participants also called on government to fully utilize the findings in order to come up with interventions that can significantly bring about changes across the country and thus effect development.