‘Economic Growth Hasn’t Produced Jobs’

Ghana’s remarkable growth performance is yet to translate into the generation of productive, decent and sustainable employment, a research on youth unemployment has revealed.

The research, “Youth Employment and Unemployment Challenge in Africa: A Case of Ghana”, funded by the Japan International Corporative Agency (JICA) and conducted by a team of academicians, led by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Ernest Aryeetey, showed that the country’s economic growth performance has been quite high averaging 5.1per cent between 1984 and 2010.

It further indicated that the rebasing of Ghana’s national accounts in 2006 pushed the country to join the ranks of lower-middle income countries with annual average growth of about 8.5 per cent from 2006 to 2011. The findings of the scoping study, expected to be drafted into a report and presented at the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) to be held in May 2013, showed the average annual employment growth had dropped from 3.94 per cent in 1992-1999 to 2.69 per cent from 1999-2006 as against real GDP growth of over 5 per cent.

The research also disclosed that according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s 2008 statistics employment elasticity of output dropped from an average of 0.64 in 1992-2000 to 0.52 and 0.4 in 2001-2004 and 2005-2008.

Dr. William Baah-Boateng, a member of the research team, who presented the results of the research at a workshop on youth unemployment attended by researchers and personnel from the Ghana Employment Association and government authorities, said the study showed an increase in youth unemployment, especially among the educated.

“According to the ILO definition of youth and unemployment, 33.0 per cent of people between the ages of 15 to 24 are unemployed with 8.0 per cent of persons between the ages of 25 to 35 with tertiary education also being unemployed,” he said.

“Twenty-three per cent of graduates between the ages of 15 and 24 and 28.8 per cent between the ages of 25 to 35 wait for two years or more before they get employed,” he said.

Dr. Baah-Boateng therefore outlined some recommendations which included a long-term national development strategy that will focus on generation of decent and productive employment.

He said the national strategy would provide more coordinated and harmonised policies towards reducing unemployment in the country.

He also recommended public investment to boost the growth of agriculture and manufacturing as well as investment in infrastructure, effective agricultural marketing strategy, affordable credit support and deepening of sectoral linkages.

Professor Aryeetey also called for the development of a national industrial strategy.

He said it was time the state assessed how it could assist the market to increase manufacturing, which will increase employment.

Dr. Simon Heap, Senior Programmes Officer at JICA, UK Office, said the results of the research will provide guidance to African governments and aid agencies on specific areas of policy interventions and investments.

“The agency will support a project aimed at reducing unemployment with up to $1, 000, 000,” he said.