At least 41 percent of youth in Uganda, which represents 9.3 million people aged between 18 and 30 years, are not engaged in any productive activity,

41% of Youth in Uganda Out of School and Unemployed

At least 41 percent of youth in Uganda, which represents 9.3 million people aged between 18 and 30 years, are not engaged in any productive activity, according to findings contained in the Uganda National Labour Force Survey. The survey, conducted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), found that the 9.3 million youth are neither in education, employment, nor receiving training.

Youth unemployment remains a serious challenge in Uganda, which has forced the government to recently admit that the country's growth is not matching up with job creation. The survey also found that 40 percent of children, representing about 6.2 million people aged between 5 and 17 years, were engaged in child labor excluding household chores, while 40 percent of people aged five and above were engaged in unpaid care work, 21 percent in subsistence agriculture, and 39 percent in other subsistence work.

The Uganda National Labour Force Survey, conducted for the period ending in 2021, also found that unemployment had increased to 12 percent from 9 percent in the 2019/20 Uganda National Household Survey. Overall, the high level of unemployment suggests that although the government has put a lot of emphasis on industrialization to create more jobs in factories and industries, the rate at which people are getting employed remains drastically low in a country characterized by a mismatch of underutilized labor force.

Mr. Micheal Ogen, the Ubos principal statistician in charge of population, said that 87 percent of working Ugandans between 14 and 64 years, 40 percent were in subsistence work, while 43 percent worked in agriculture. The labor force is dominated by men, with 58 percent compared to 39 percent for females.