9. Occupation ________

Questions 8, 9, 10 and 11 are restricted to persons aged 10 years and over.

9. If employed (i.e. worked or had job but did not work) what kind of work did you do? For unemployed, last kind of work.

Note that this question should be asked only of the employed and the unemployed.

For the unemployed we are interested in the last kind of work the person did before he became unemployed. For example if he was an accounts clerk before he became unemployed you have to write in the space provided "accounts clerk". However there are certain unemployed who have never worked before, e.g. students or vocational trainees who have just finished school or completed their period of training and who are actively looking for a job. For such persons write down in column 9 "new workers seeking employment".

Note that you should write down what work the respondent actually did daring the seven days preceding census night and not what he is trained to do or what he used to do. For instance, if the respondent has been trained as a lorry driver but actually worked as road labourer during the 7 days preceding census night, you should write down road laborer.

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Remember to write down a detailed and exact description of the work the respondent actually did. For example, the term labourer is too vague. Hence, be more precise by indicating whether the person was office cleaner, building labourer, gardener, farm labourer, three feller, etc.

Avoid other vague terms like businessman, petty trader, malam, trader, manager, civil servant, engineer which cover several groups of persons occupying different grades and doing different kinds of work.

Therefore, always specify the exact work done by the respondent. For instance you should give the following information about teachers and engineers.

For teachers, specify the following groups:

For engineer you should specify the type of engineer the respondent is, e.g:

For members of the armed forces (i.e., army, air force and navy) you should go into greater detail to find out the actual rank and the occupational specialization of the person. A soldier may be a motor vehicle driver, tailor, wireless operator, fitter, gunner, staff nurse, etc. Similarly you should not take an officer for an answer but inquire for further details. The officer may be a teacher, an electrical engineer, a medical officer, a pilot. Soldiers and officers not having a particular trade or occupation should be entered as soldier (private), soldier (corporal), soldier (lieutenant), etc.

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You should also distinguish between the following:

Note that whenever you specify a seller or maker of a particular commodity which is only understood in the area concerned you should also write in brackets after it whether that commodity is food, drink, etc. For instance, you may write seller of aheyi (non-alcoholic drink), maker of tubani (food).