Wages in the food chain in South Sudan

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• Download Amsterdam: Wage Indicator Foundation, Wage Indicator Data Report October 2013 (EN)

Summary:

This WageIndicator Data Report presents the results of the face-to-face WageIndicator survey in South Sudan, conducted between the 1st of June and the 19th of July 2013 in the southern and eastern regions of South Sudan. In total 1,329 persons were interviewed; 71% were men, 29% women and 37% were under 30 years old. The workers live in households with on average 5 members, including themselves. The majority live with a partner and children (64% of men and 60% of women). Up to 16% of workers followed no formal education, two in ten stopped at elementary education, 39% followed secondary school, 12% followed vocational education and 13% went to university. On average, respondents have worked for 8.29 years. Rating their satisfaction with life-as-a-whole on a scale from 1=dissatisfied to 10=satisfied, the interviewees score a 4 on average.

 

One in four respondents work agriculture, followed by 12% in public administration. Legal and market consultancy and business activities rank third (9%) and fourth are education and research. This report focuses on the food chain. By definition all agricultural workers are in the food chain, as well as all transportation and storage workers in the sample. Over half of the workers in manufacturing industry work in food manufacturing as well as almost half of the people in the wholesale and retail industry. Finally, in accommodation and food service activities, this is slightly over half.

 

Two in ten workers are self-employed, 32% are employees with a permanent contract, 17% have fixed-term contracts, whereas 31% have no contract at all. More than half of the people work in an organization with 10 or fewer employees, one in four work in an organization with 11-50 employees, 11% work in businesses of 51 to 100 employees and 10% work for businesses employing over a 100 people. Those working in the food chain work predominantly in small firms (58%), as do women (58%) and the low educated (73%).

 

The biggest occupational groups are professionals (9%), technicians and associate professionals (10%) and elementary occupations (10%). Workers in the food chain are more often found among the skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers. In the professional and clerical categories the food chain workers are underrepresented. Women much more often work in the services (35% versus 25% for men) or elementary occupations (16% compared to 11% for men), while men are overrepresented among managers, professionals and plant and machine operators.