World Bank report discounts gov’t job claims

• Posted on May 13, 2016May 13, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Claims by the current Mahama administration that it has created over 6,000 jobs in the last four years have been discounted by a new World Bank report, which indicates that almost half (48 percent) of Ghana’s youth aged between 15 and 24 are without jobs.

The report: ‘Landscape of Jobs in Ghana’ said young women in the country were particularly disadvantaged and had much higher job inactivity rates than their male counterparts.

It also said 17 percent of young females were inactive as opposed to 11 percent of males.

Lead researcher and Senior Economist at the World Bank, Sara Johansson has advised government to equip the youth with relevant skills through the educational system.

The report further said a youth unemployment bulge was likely to happen in the years ahead.

Government, it would be recalled, recently stated that close to 96,000 additional youth had been trained to create their own jobs.

According to the Ghana Living Standards Survey for 2012/2013, unemployment was marginally higher for females (2.0 percent) than males (1.6 percent) and higher in urban areas (3.5 percent) than in rural areas (0.8 percent).

The GLSS estimates that 250,000 young men and women enter the Ghanaian labour market every year with only two percent absorbed in the formal sector while 98 percent seek employment in the informal sector or remain unemployed.

Dr Yao Graham, Campaign Coordinator of the Third World Network, at a recent national forum on inclusive growth in Accra, dispelled government’s claim that it had created thousands of jobs through its economic management and infrastructural development programmes.

“Many of the business associations are on record telling us some of the challenges they face. Creating a productive enterprise for example in manufacturing and agriculture which is producing for domestic consumption, it’s very difficult because policies are biased in favour of those who are producing for export.”

By Samuel Boadi