More job losses amongst Samoan women: report

By Adel Fruean 15 January 2022, 11:38PM

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Samoa’s job market has led to more women in Samoa reporting job losses in 2020, a report has revealed.

The report titled “Leadership Matters: Benchmarking Women in Business Leadership in the Pacific”, which was published by the Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative last September, analysis data on women representation on boards and in senior management in 14 Pacific developing member countries of the Asian Development Bank.

While the report found that the Pacific compares favourably with global averages for women’s representation on boards and in senior executive leadership, it noted that women in the region were the main ones whose economic participation suffered at the height of the pandemic.

The report concluded that the pandemic deepened existing inequalities and disproportionately affected women—who already earned less, saved less and were more likely to hold insecure jobs.

For Samoa, the report claimed that over 60 per cent of employees reporting job losses were women.

“Global trends have shown that women are losing jobs at a higher rate than men because of the pandemic’s impact on sectors that employ large numbers of women, such as retail, tourism, and hospitality,” reads the report.

“Available data indicates that these trends also apply to the Pacific. 

“In Samoa, 64 per cent of those reporting job losses were women.

“Globally, women represent a majority of the tourism workforce.”

Furthermore, the report stated that the labor force participation rate in Samoa is 43 per cent with the majority of Samoa’s working-age population engaged in either subsistence or domestic activities or informal employment.

“Almost half of all working-age women listed domestic duties as their main activity,” the report further adds.

“Women comprise 42 per cent of the formal workforce overall but represent 57 per cent of the public service.

“Within the private sector, women comprise 39 per cent of the workforce with almost half employed in the wholesale and retail trade industry (32 per cent) and accommodation and food services (17 per cent) industries.”

Women in the private sector in Samoa are less likely than men to be full-time employees or working proprietors but are more likely to be unpaid family or volunteer employees, said the report.

“Despite their lower labor force participation rate, women in formal employment have a higher average yearly wage than men.

“Women are estimated to run over 40 per cent of Samoa’s micro-enterprises, which constitute approximately 80 per cent of all businesses in the country .”

The statistics that the report quoted came from a number of authorities including the Samoa Government, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Bank.

By Adel Fruean 15 January 2022, 11:38PM
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