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Windhoek — Namibia’s unemployment rate rose to 36.9% in 2023 from 33.4% in 2018, the statistics office said on Wednesday.
The country of about 3-million people has one of the highest official unemployment rates in the world. It has overtaken neighbouring SA, the unemployment rate of which fell to 32.1% in the third quarter of 2024.
Statistician-general Alex Shimuafeni said that 320,442 people were employed in Namibia in 2023, of the total 867,247 people in the labour force.
Namibia’s unemployment rate now excludes discouraged workers, which means the real number of people without jobs is higher.
The broader unemployment rate stands at 54.8%, as reported in the 2023 Labour Force report, said Tannan Groenewald, head of data and analytics at Cirrus Capital.
In December, Namibian president-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah pledged “radical shifts” to fix the country’s high levels of poverty and unemployment.
Reuters
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