The Minister of Labour, Cllr. Cooper W. Kruah, has emphasized the importance for the conduct of a labour statistics survey to determine employment level in the country. Minister Kruah stressed that the Labour Statistics survey is important because between 2023 to the time this government came to power, the Ministry of Labour did not have any document or system to provide an actual quarterly or yearly statistics on employment in Liberia.
He added that one key of reason provided to his office was that, the Ministry thought that the Liberia Institute for Geo-Information Services (LIGIS), would have taken the lead in conducting such an exercise, being the official statistics house of the country. A Labour Ministry press release issued quotes Minister Kruah as making the statement at the opening of a day long Technical Session and training for statisticians of the Ministry by LIGIS at the E.J.S. Ministerial Complex in Congo Town, outside Monrovia for the conduct of the pending nation-wide Labour Statistics Survey.
The release disclosed that the pending labour statistics survey will cover over 300 employment institutions in the private sector across the country. The Liberia Labour Minister emphasized that his administration has decided working along with LIGIS and partners to carryout the labour statistics survey, in order to answer some the concerns of employment creation in the public. Minister Kruah noted that since assuming the affairs of the Ministry, his administration has been trying to determine the exact status of employment in 2023, so as to determine the difference in employment statistics between the period 2023 to 2025. He expressed the hope that the pending survey will be able to come up with informed statistics on employment between the period of January 2024 to December 2025 over following period.
“We did a sample last year, covering five institutions and it was established that over 5,000 jobs were created by those institutions,” Minister Kruah informed the audience. He then encouraged the participants of the survey to be diligent and come out with credible statistics to inform policy makers of employment status, noting that President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has been very concerned of employment issues in the country. Minister Kruah further revealed that although Liberians are now being employed, there is a need to have an accurate data on jobs being created for Liberians by sectors, noting that this has been the problem for the Ministry in time past.
For his part, the Assistant Labour Minister for Research and Statistics, Jackson F. Wolobah hailed Minister Kruah for facilitating and approving the conduct of the survey which had been delayed, despite several attempts by his division. Assistant Minister Wolobah stressed for accurate, credible and reliable labour statistics on job creation, which is very significant in the work of the Ministry and government as a whole. He noted that the key function of the Ministry is to ensure that Liberians are provided employment opportunities, praising Minister Kruah for his farsightedness to increase the fees for alien work permit from US 1,000.00 to USD3000.00 as a means of getting more Liberians on jobs.
Assistant Minister Wolobah described such action as one discouraging foreigners from taking jobs intended for Liberians, noting that the survey is intended to measure the level of impact the Minister’s action has made on the increment of jobs for Liberians in the private sector.
