No jobs in Ghana? Growth without development

The unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana used to have [email protected] as their email address.

They had to change it to unemployed [email protected] because hackers broke into their mailbox and started manipulating information there.

Stranded youth evokes the desolation of unemployed youth. They are stranded even before they are midway through life's journey, and that for many is a harrowing experience.

Ms Eva Lokko, the running mate on the ticket of the People's Progressive Party's (PPP) in the 2012 Elections, in an article titled "Graduate unemployment – a discordant life cycle," which was published in the Daily Graphic of September 11, 2012, described the stage of employment for the youth as the "stage two life cycle." 

The stage one cycle of life was the baby to teen years, characterised by total dependence on parents, while the stage three cycle was when parents got old and depended on their gainfully employed and developed youthful children. When the youth were not gainfully employed it affected all the cycles of life resulting in discordant life cycles.

Comprehensive figures on unemployment in the country are difficult to get.

"Addressing the unemployment challenge has been hampered by the virtual absence of up-to-date and accurate information on the labour market," a Research Paper titled "The Labour Market in Ghana," by the Trades Union Congress (2009) states.

Available figures on employment are outdated but the research paper estimates that about 250,000 young people enter the labour market yearly.

The formal sector employs only about 5000 or two per cent out of the number. The rest (98 per cent) are compelled to seek employment in the informal sector.

The Graduate Business Support Scheme (GBSS) – a collaborative initiative of the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare (MESW), other government ministries, agencies and some private organisations – estimates that out of the total number of youth entering the labour market yearly, more than 30 per cent or 70,000 are graduates (www.gebssghana.org), with only 5000 managing to find work in the formal sector.

The phenomenon of unemployment in general, and graduate unemployment in particular, is gaining the attention of governments and international organisations, because of its disruptive nature when left unattended.

The Arab Spring of 2011 attests to this. A young high school graduate selling fruit in a cart was heckled by the police. In protest, he set himself ablaze sparking off demonstrations and riots, with the toppling of governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, etc., the repercussions of which are still being felt in the countries.

The World Bank, this year, dedicated its flagship publication on development to the issue of employment.

Launched in October 2012, the "World Development Report 2013: Jobs," notes that jobs today are "a critical concern across the globe—for policy makers, the business community, and the billions of men and women striving to provide for their families." The publication looks at jobs and how they impact individuals, societies and national economies.

"As the world struggles to emerge from the global crisis, some 200 million people—including 75 million under the age of 25—are unemployed. Many millions more, most of them women, find themselves shut out of the labour force altogether. Looking forward, over the next 15 years an additional 600 million new jobs will be needed to absorb burgeoning working-age populations, mainly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa," the report says.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) also in its "Global Employment Trends 2013, Recovering from a second jobs dip," estimates that since the economic meltdown of the 2008, unemployment has risen to 28 million.

Last year alone, unemployment increased by four million, a quarter of the number was from developed countries, "while three quarters has been in other regions, with marked effects in East Asia, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa," the report says.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is undertaking a study on "Youth Unemployment and Employment Challenges in Africa, the Case Study of Ghana,"as part of a broader and comprehensive study on youth unemployment in Africa that is also being undertaken in Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia.

The study will help inform discussions on youth unemployment in Africa, one of the issues to be tabled at the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) to be held in May 2013.

Dr Simon Heap of JICA, at a seminar to discuss the draft report in November last year, showed that an emerging dimension of youth employment in Ghana in recent times was the increasing unemployment among the educated.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, who is leading the research on Ghana, set the challenge of unemployment in perspective, noting that growth mainly in the service sectors of the economy resulted in limited employment opportunities for Ghana. The impressive growth rates by the service sector, that groups businesses like the telecommunication companies, the banks, insurance companies, etc.  buoys up the overall growth rate of the country, but has no bearing at all on the number of jobs created.

The Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Mr Kofi Asamoah, describes the situation as "growth without development."

With all the positive economic growth rates of the country, employment creation should have soared, but that is not the reality.

"The young and able-bodied we see in the streets selling anything they can lay their hands on and half of which we do not need, is testimony enough of the situation of unemployment in the country," Mr Asamoah says.

He says unemployment in general and youth unemployment in particular, portends great danger for the country if the government does not act, citing the Arab Spring as a case in point.

An already bad situation is compounded by the lack of a Labour Market Information system (LIS). The government with the responsibility of ensuring policy alternatives that create employment has no idea at all about the number of unemployed.

Thus, the country embarks on economic plans and objectives with no idea at all about how many jobs the economic effort for the year would generate and at what cost, Mr Kwamina Amosi-Andoh, the National Project Manager of the ILO Ghana Project Office, says.

Prof. Aryeetey's submissions at the seminar are still valid. For him the challenge facing the country is the impressive growth of the service sectors like the banks with no commensurate growth in the sectors with the potential for creating employment, i.e. the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

In his view, the way forward in solving the challenge of unemployment was for clarity on the part of the state in its vision for the manufacturing/industrial sector and how it would assist in achieving this vision.

"You cannot create jobs by legislating, when your agricultural sector is not growing. You can create more banks, but they must service something," he stated.

In line with these submissions, the Vice Chancellor called for a national Industrialisation Policy, detailing exactly what government wanted from industry and how it would support the attainment of the goals.

Others like the Director of the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy, Prof. Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, during  the maiden Panel of Eminent Citizens discussion on "Deepening Dialogue on National Issues," organised by the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) in September last year, proposed a presidential commission on unemployment to study the phenomenon and appropriately recommend a solution, while Ms Lokko has asked for district transition centres for graduates and an unemployment fund.

As we tarry in solving the phenomenon, the acting President of the Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana (UGAG), Messrs Justice Kojo Antwi, reveals a new dimension of the challenge in Ghana.

He told the Daily Graphic that a road show undertaken last year by UGAG resulted in huge numbers of senior high school (SHS) graduates attending their programmes and very eager to join them to benefit from any training offered.

With a membership of about 7000, UGAG strives, with the help of benefactors, to make itself useful, mobilising and offering support to its membership.

Mr Antwi disagrees with those arguing for graduates to get into self-employed initiatives.

"Some of our members have come together for that and they are doing well. But others with initiatives have no funding to support," he said.

The lessons from the Arab Spring should make any government sit up in the creation of employment opportunities, for when there are no jobs for people, and government agencies like the security forces frustrate those following inherent need and right to work by trying to eke out a living on the streets, they throw caution to the wind, and the political stability of the country will be at stake.

Article by Caroline Boateng