Title: Employment in the Formal Sector.
Source: Returns and censuses of staff of ministerial departments, the Benin Social Security Office, the Benin Computer Office and the periodic returns on the workforce.
Employment:
The series is annual and therefore not published in the Bulletin.
Directorate of Studies and Planning, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Direction des études et de la planification, ministère du Travail et des Affaires sociales).
Geographical: The whole country.
Industrial: All major divisions of industry in the formal sector. Distribution by type of economic activity is established in accordance with the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC-1968), simplified in order to correspond to the available data.
Occupational: The series covers all occupational groups in the formal sector, but no statistics on the individual occupations of workers exist.
Establishment: This series covers establishments of all sizes in the formal sector. It comprises the public administration, State enterprises and offices, local communities, provincial companies and private enterprises, which are classified in the official statistics (Benin Social Security Office, Chamber of Commerce and periodic returns on the workforce), the religious sector and international organisations.
Persons covered: The national statistics distinguish two types of worker in the formal sector: permanent and non-permanent (or casual). This series covers all permanent workers amongst the salaried employees aged 10 years and above in the establishments referred to above (excluding the armed forces). In terms of permanent jobs, the formal sector employed about 6 per cent of the labour force in Benin in 1981. A large proportion of workers in agriculture, livestock production, forestry and fishing (industry major division I), wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels (major division VI), and transport, storage and communication (major division VII) however, are not covered by the statistics as they are not reported to the Social Security Office.
The national statistics also contain data on employment in the formal sector, by skill levels, by nationality, and according to size of enterprise, as well as data on female employment according to employer category (State sector or private sector), and an estimation of casual workers in the formal sector who are not covered by this series. National statistics also include an estimate of employment in the informal sector which comprises the vast majority of the rural sector, commerce and crafts (nearly 95 per cent of the economically active population in 1981).
The series is annual and started in 1973. It reflects the situation of the workforce as at 31 December of each year.
Employment: The present series covers all persons 10 years of age and above who hold permanent, paid employment and who are listed on the manning table of the public administration or in the registers of the Benin Social Security Office.
It excludes working proprietors, own-account workers, casual workers or day labourers in the formal and informal sectors and unpaid family workers.
Hours of work: Not applicable.
Wages: Not applicable.
31 December of each year.
The Directorate of Studies and Planning handles the data furnished by the censuses of permanent State employees (RAPE), of State personnel requirements (RBPE), the periodic returns on the workforce which are the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs as well as the lists of employers registered with the Benin Social Security Office. RAPE and RBPE were administrative censuses carried out in 1980-1981. The data collected were obtained from financial and administrative services and concerned all ministerial departments, as well as all public and semi-public enterprises in the country. The questionnaires used for data collection took into account, among other things, the staff employed in the years 1977 to 1981, thus making it possible to correct data collected before the survey.
As regards the periodic returns on the workforce, all directors of enterprises and establishments and all other employers are required to submit an annual return on the status of their workforce. These returns, based on a model established by decree of the Minister of Labour, must reach the Ministry of Labour not later than 31 January of the following year.
The data are processed between January and October each year, and the results are available, in principle, in November of the year following the reference year. No estimations or adjustments are made to the results.
Since 1980, the surveys and studies carried out by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Planning have made it possible to obtain a clearer understanding of employment trends by branch of activity. Data relating to the years prior to 1980 were estimations based on the sources mentioned under the first heading.
Ministère du Travail et des Affaires sociales, Direction des études et de la planification: "Revue de Statistiques et de Législation du Travail, No. 7" (biennial) (Cotonou, July 1984). The July 1984 issue gives data for 1981 and 1982.