ISLAMABAD, Feb 16: The employment ratio in the agriculture sector has declined to 44 per cent of the total employed labour-force during the current fiscal year as against 48.4 per cent share in the year 1999-2000.

Official findings of the first-ever quarterly Labour- Force Survey (LFS) 2005-06, available with Dawn, however, indicated that the number of employed people had increased to 47.55 million in September last year compared with 42 million in 2003-04.

The report released recently by Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), showed that some 5.55 million additional jobs were generated during the last year.

Of these 2.85 million jobs in agriculture sector, 0.94 million in the manufacturing sector, 0.11 million in electricity, gas and water distribution, 0.43 million in construction industry, O.43 million in wholesale and retail trade, 0.32 million in transport sector, 0.12 million in finance and insurance and 0.32 million in community, social and personal service.

However, the report said that the share of employment in the agriculture sector was 43.1 per cent as was recorded in the LFS in 2003-04 and 42.1 per cent in the LFS 2001-02. The decline is attributable to highly mechanized farming along with no tangible expansion in the cultivation areas of the major crops of the country.

Agriculture, which is the backbone of the country’s economy, currently absorbed around 17 million people of both sexes, which remained stagnated during the last few years.

The quarterly labour-force survey had put the total unemployment at 6.9 per cent compared with previously recorded 7.8pc in 2003-04. Of these the male unemployment stood at 5.9 per cent and female at 10.3 per cent.

A comparison of male and female unemployment rates reveals that the labour-force participation rates for females have been increasing over the years.

The unemployment ratio of female workers declined to 10.3 per cent during the current fiscal year as against 17.3 per cent during the year 1999-2000. While in case of male unemployment the situation remained almost the same.

Multiple factors like increased awareness, better educational opportunities, equal employment opportunities, changing social attitudes etc. are responsible for this reduction in female unemployment.

According to the statistics, the quarterly labour survey was based on 9,000 people as against the total 18,000 people surveyed in the labour-force survey of 2003-04. However, in the next three quarters the total sampling would reach 36,000 people.

According to the quarterly report, the share of manufacturing sector in employment was recorded at 14.1 per cent. The share of this sector in total employment was recorded at 13.8 per cent and 13.7 per cent in the LFS 2001-02 and 2003-04, respectively.

This showed that the share of manufacturing sector also did not register any tangible growth in providing employment to the people in proportion to the raise in the population. The statistics also negate the government claim that huge investment were attracted during the last year.

This means that investment were made in those sectors, which did not help in generating employment opportunities, excluding the lone sector of telecommunications.

The other sectors, the share of which also remained stagnated at a certain percentage, included wholesale and retail trade, which stood at 14 per cent during the first quarter of this year.