Post-Cyclone Matthew Needs Assessment: Employment and Livelihoods Sector

The employment volume of the post-Matthew needs assessment. Matthew affected 5.6 million people, 43 percent of them under 18, across 1.2 million households, and this volume converts that into lost work rather than lost assets.

It estimates that over fiscal year 2016/17 a total of 32,437,532 working days were lost, the equivalent of 122,406 full-time jobs, along with about 974.47 million gourdes of personal income, or 14.74 million US dollars. Those losses come from production falling in both the agricultural and the non-agricultural sectors.

The structural context it sets is what makes the figure legible. The great majority of Haitian jobs are created in agriculture, 47 percent, or in informal non-agricultural sectors, 45.1 percent, so a shock to production translates almost directly into lost household income with no formal buffer. With more than 59 percent of Haitians in poverty and more than 24 percent in extreme poverty, and household labor supply having risen since the 2010 earthquake, the volume treats employment recovery as an income question rather than a job-creation target.