Comparing World Bank and Bank of Guyana employment statistics with PPP claims about new jobs

Jun 08, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – In October 2023, Vice President Jagdeo claimed that the PPP had fulfilled a PPP Manifesto promise by creating 50,000 jobs [https://newsroom.gy/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/pdfresizer.com-pdf-resize.pdf], in just over 3 years since returning to power, but without providing any evidence for his claim (https://www.stabroeknews.com/2023/10/12/news/guyana/govt-has-fulfilled-promise-by-creating-50000-jobs-jagdeo/ ).

In May 2025, Tara Singh claimed the Government added more than 60,000 jobs between 2020 and 2024, but provided no URL or citation; (https://www.stabroeknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/30/opinion/letters/unofficial-data-suggests-changes-to-hinterland-regions-high-ranking-on-guyanas-marginality-index/ ).

In the table below, we assemble data on Guyana’s employment garnered from the World Bank country profile overview and the Bank of Guyana annual report for 2024, table 11-III. The World Bank uses a model from the International Labour Organization (ILO) to estimate the number of unemployed as % of the labour force. We estimated the number of employed persons as (labour force x (100 – percentage unemployed) / 100).

	Labour force	Un-employed as % of labour	Employed
Source	Bank of Guyana	World Bank	Our estimate
unit	‘000	%	‘000

2024	318.1	10.2	285.7
2023	317.0	12	279.0
2022	316.0	12	278.1
2021	314.8	14.6	268.8
2020	313.6	15.3	265.6
2019	311.1	13.2	270.0
2018	312.4	13.6	269.9
2015	277.2	13	241.2

We extracted employment figures for 2020 and 2021 also from the Guyana labour force survey by the Bureau of Statistics (November 2021). The Bureau’s figures of 251,000 in 2020 and 264,900 in 2021 match reasonably well our estimates of 265,600 in 2020 and 268,800 in 2021. In contrast, the Private Sector Commission’s (PSC) estimate of 47% employment of the labour force in December 2023 (= 149,000) differs greatly from (is only about half of) the ILO-based estimate.

From our table above, employment may have increased 2020-2024 by 285,700 – 265,500 = 20,200 over these five years.

From Press reports, we can account for extra employment from three government schemes since 2020: 15,283 in the part-time Pathways project, G$40,000 per month; 2,700 Amerindian Community Support Officers (CSOs); and 6,484 in the ENGAGE project; a total of 24,467. None of these three projects offers full-time employment.

We cannot account for PPP/C claims of employment increases of 50,000 or 60,000 new jobs over 2020-2024 period. We wonder whether Tara Singh might use his access to the PPP/C government to get authorization for the release of employment data from 2021-2024 compiled by the Bureau of Statistics. That would hopefully provide definitive answers.

It is natural for an incumbent government to issue glossy claims in the months before a national election. But doubling the verifiable data, and including part-time, discretionary employment, suggests a government ruling by seat-of-pants and not by evidence. When 37% of the national budget comes from the pitiful gleanings from the crafty, not to say deceitful, oil consortium led by ExxonMobil (Chris Ram in part 159 of his column The Road to First Oil, Stabroek News, 06 June 2025), the citizens of Guyana need a more alert, analytical and evidence-based government than is shown by the exaggerated claims to have generated new jobs in the period 2020-2024.

Janette Bulkan

Andre Brandli

Alfred Bhulai

Kenrick Hunte

Darshanand Khusial

Joe Persaud

On behalf of OGGN, www.OGGN.org

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Andre Brandli, Bank of Guyana, Employment Statistics, Janette Bulkan, letter, OGGN, PPP Manifesto, Tara Singh, World Bank

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