Real output of the agricultural sector was bolstered by a bumper maize crop which was predominantly harvested in the second quarter, while simultaneously almost all the other main sectors of the economy displayed solid growth too. Enterprise-surveyed employment outside the agricultural sector recorded successive increases in each of the five quarters to September 2004.
Private-sector job opportunities benefited most from the economic recovery, but there was also a moderate increase in public-sector employment. The pick-up in enterprise-surveyed employment was, however, not sustained in the last quarter of 2004 and the first quarter of 2005. Over the year to March 2005 enterprise-surveyed employment rose, on balance, by 111 000.