GSS launches survey to track jobs, food security

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has launched a Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) to address the long-standing gaps in labour market data, food insecurity and multidimensional poverty tracking. 

The initiative, which officially starts in the second quarter of 2025, aims to generate timely and comprehensive statistics to guide national planning and policy decisions.

The QLFS, launched in Winneba in the Central Region yesterday, is designed to replace the irregular intervals at which labour and poverty data were previously collected, which sometimes stretched from two to five years.

The survey, which would be conducted across three quarters in 2025 —May 17 to June 30, August 17 to September 30, and November 1 to December 15 — will cover 13,920 households in both urban and rural areas.

The QLFS will gather data on labour market dynamics, food insecurity and multidimensional poverty using electronic data collection tools, including tablets and a Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) system.

Collection

About 300 personnel, including 215 trainees, have been trained for the fieldwork, with each of the 40 survey teams made up of a supervisor, four interviewers and a driver.

The teams would work across 29 enumeration areas, with each team expected to complete one area in half a day, covering up to 12 households daily.

The QLFS instrument includes new modules on shift-based work, skills mismatch and perceptions of shift work, in addition to tracking employment, health, education, housing conditions and food security.

Supervisors and interviewers would receive daily field allowances and monthly taxable salaries for up to six months.

Data collected would be monitored in real time via a dashboard at GSS headquarters to ensure quality and accountability.

Significance

The Deputy Government Statistician and Deputy Project Director, Dr Faustina Frimpong-Ainguah, highlighted the importance of data in informing employment programmes, social protection policies and national development strategies.

She emphasised that collecting data was not an end in itself, but rather the real value lay in how it was used to inform interventions that improved lives.

“Data is not just a collection of numbers—it is the key to transformation,” she said.

Dr Frimpong-Ainguah highlighted the case of Ada West in the Greater Accra Region, where data from the 2021 Population and Housing Census revealed that residents spent an average of 39 minutes fetching water, more than any other district nationwide, which led to a significant intervention by an NGO.

She, therefore, urged enumerators to adopt a human-centred approach and to connect with communities respectfully and empathetically.