However, employment of Mauritians is estimated at only 481,900 in the first quarter of 2021 compared to 538,000 in December 2020- a decline in employment by 56,100.
Please note that the labour force shows a decrease of 64,700 between Dec 2020 and Q1 2021 . Why ?
Because Statistics Mauritius (SM) classifies the individuals and self-employed persons who were not looking for work during the lockdown, as (temporarily) ‘inactive’ and not as ‘unemployed’. Although they were classified as inactive, they received the support provided by Government under the Self-Employed Assistance Scheme. And SM has assumed that with the end of the lockdown, the number of inactive persons is expected to decrease to its normal level.
If we had kept the same labour force as in Dec 2020, (which does not change much over one quarter), the unemployment rate for Q1 2021 works out to be 20 %.
