Manpower Planning in Zambia
| Published date | 01 October 1968 |
| Author | C. C. Greenfield |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1968.tb00347.x |
| Date | 01 October 1968 |
Manpower Planning
in Zambia
By C. C.
GREENFIELD
Mr.
Greenfield is employed in
the
Statistical Section of the Office of National
Development and Planning, Lusaka."
THEeconomy of Zambia is growing and changing rapidly; so much so that
any description given now, particularly of organizational aspects
of
manpower
planning, might well be out-of-date in six months time.
The
fundamental
manpower problems, however, of an acute shortage of well-educated, trained
and experienced labour together with an abundance of unskilled, under-
employed or unemployed labour, do not change so rapidly. This latter
problem is the greater of the two, for with population growing at an estimated
3.5 per cent per annum, then even with the current rate of growth of Gross
Domestic Product, estimated at about I I per cent per annum in real terms,
the increase in employment opportunities is barely sufficient to absorb the
increase in the labour force. Paradoxically, with a land area
of
290,000
square
miles
but
a mean density of population per square mile of only 13.7, in certain
areas there are too few people to enable a number of desirable developments:
insufficient supply of unskilled labour to man a factory, or too few children to
warrant the provision of a school, for example.
The
Manpower
Survey
In attempting to plan amelioration of the manpower situation, an immedi-
ate obstacle is the lack of necessary statistics. Prior to 1965, there was virtu-
ally no information on the labour force, particularly on its educational and
occupational structure, other than that collected inadequately in past censuses.
Aquarterly employment enquiry was and is carried out by the Central
Statistical Office,
but
this simply gives employment by race, sex and industry
and average earnings by race and industry, which is
of
limited value for
purposes of manpower planning. In order, therefore, to plan the manpower
aspects of the First National Development Plan,' a manpower surveys was
undertaken in mid-
I9
65.
The
survey was directed at employees and employers with, or in jobs
•
The
opinions expressed in this article are those of
the
author and do
not
neces-
sarily reflect the view of the Office of National Development and Planning, of which
he is an employee.
!'First National Development Plan,' 1966-70 (Office of National Development and
Planning, Lusaka.)
2
The
results of this survey are summarised in the 'Manpower Report -A Report
and Statistical Handbook on Manpower, Education, Training and Zambianisation
1965-6' (Government Printer, Lusaka).
5°1
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