Bawumia’s 2.1 million jobs, facts or propaganda?

On 8th April 2023, Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, speaking to NPP supporters during a health walk in Mpraeso said the NPP had created 2.1 million jobs since it assumed office in 2017. The claim generated intense debate on social media with the Vice President being challenged to provide data and evidence to back his claim.

Veep Bawumia repeated his 2.1 million jobs claim whilst addressing Muslims on 22nd April 2023 at Eid-ul-Fitr prayers at the Black Star Square in Accra.

Then on 26th April 2023, Veep Bawumia posted a data sheet on his Facebook page with figures indicating that the NPP had created 2,255,928 jobs in six years from 2017 to 2022. This is made up of 1,280,764 public sector jobs and 975,164 private formal sector jobs that were SSNIT social security contributors.

This article examines the Vice President’s claim. For now, ignore the inconsistency in the figures he has put out.

Bawumia’s figures versus Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) figures:

To start with, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) should be the reference point for national statistics on the extremely important subject of employment. Unfortunately, the GSS because of resource constraints is unable to generate annual employment statistics as is done in some developed countries like the United States where the Bureau of Labour Statistics publishes monthly jobs statistics.

The GSS rather conducts the Ghana Living Standards Survey and more recently the Ghana Household and Expenditure Survey. These surveys are irregular. Then once every ten or so years the population census is conducted.

The GSS conducted the Ghana Living Standards Survey Series 7 (GLSS 7) from 22nd October 2016 to 17th October 2017 with 14,009 households responding. Four years later, the GSS conducted the Ghana 2021 Population and Housing Census (2021 PHC) with 27th June 2021 as the census night.

Below is a summary of figures from GLSS 7 and PHC 2021.


Source: GSS

From 2017 to 2021, the number of employed reduced by 1.2 million and the number of unemployed increased by more than half a million. This is contrary to Veep Bawumia’s claim of creating more than 2 million jobs in the same period.

Bawumia’s figures versus SSNIT figures

Below are extracts of figures from SSNIT’s annual reports from 2016 to 2020.


Source: SSNIT Annual Reports, 2016 – 2020

Veep Bawumia’s data sheet indicates that from 2017 to 2020 the number of new private sector contributors to SSNIT was 663,684. This figure cannot be correct as the overall change in the number of private sector contributors during the period per SSNIT’s figures was 240,459.

In conclusion, Veep Bawumia’s claim of creating more than 2 million jobs is propaganda.

Such propaganda from the government and NPP is not new. The NPP for instance claimed in its Election 2020 Manifesto that it had created 762,300 jobs annually through the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme. Former Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, who today is campaigning to be the NPP’s flagbearer for the 2024 general elections, also use to bandy figures of jobs created under PFJ. None of those claims is validated by the GSS data.

The jobs situation is grim and various national surveys conducted by researchers have consistently established it as the number one political and socio-economic issue.

With a population growth rate of 2.1% and young people (15 - 34 years) making up 38.2% of the population per the 2021 census the creation of sustainable jobs and decent work for youth especially will remain at the heart of economic policy in the next decade and beyond.

Jobs should therefore not be a matter for political propaganda by anyone.

Lastly, the GSS should be adequately resourced to provide regular quarterly figures on jobs so that we can have meaningful national conversations on the subject based on data and evidence.