Africa-Press – Angola. Angolan economists have called for increased investment in strategic sectors to improve employment indicators and reduce the unemployment rate, as presented in the Angola Employment Survey (IEA) on Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
In an interview, experts recommended increased investment in agriculture and technical training in order to alter the indicators that enable the government to design more effective public policies and improve the quality of life of the population.
Economist Wilson Neves highlighted the need to reduce the demographic dividend by lowering the ratio of people of working age who are not in the labor force.
“We need to turn this demographic dividend to our advantage by making our population more productive to improve productivity rates,” he said, underlining the need to examine the quality of the technical and academic qualifications of the country’s workforce.
“They must be of working age, physically and mentally fit to work, and available to work, i.e. looking for work. If they are not looking for work, they cannot be considered unemployed,” the economist said.
For his part, economist Constantino highlighted that the employment survey shows a labor force of over 22.4 million, of whom 10.8 million are men and 11.5 million are women.
“Of this number, women are the most unemployed, which means we have to empower women. We have to consider two things here. Firstly, we have to consider the country’s economic growth, and secondly, we have to consider the figures released by the INE,’ he said.
According to the expert, the country needs to invest more in agriculture, focusing particularly on those working in rural areas, in order to reverse the trend of young people leaving the countryside for the cities.
Daniel Sapateiro, an economist, highlighted the methodological alignment of the Employment Survey in Angola with the new international standards. The survey shows an average unemployment rate of 20.1%.
“Alongside other macroeconomic indicators, the year-on-year inflation rate, the BNA rate, and other indicators showing a consistent decline have been growing,” the economist said.
He also stressed that Angola has an informality rate of 78%, which is striking.
The Angola Employment Survey for the fourth quarter of 2025, released by INE, incorporates the latest resolutions from the 19th, 20th and 21st International Conferences on Labor Statistics (CIET) for the first time. These conferences are promoted by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Source: ANGOP
