Is Unemployment a problem in Ghana?

Unemployment has been a challenge to many economies, especially to those in the developing world which Ghana is not left out of.

In 2020, the unemployment rate in Ghana was at approximately 4.53 percent of the total labor force. The unemployment rate is the percentage of a country's labor force that is without jobs but is available to work and actively seeking employment. Ghana’s unemployment rate is above the worldwide unemployment rate, which is 1.7 percentage points above the world average. Unemployment in Ghana is alarming with the rate at which it is heading, Ghana is expected to reach 4.60 percent by the end of 2021, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts' expectations. In the long-term, the Ghana Unemployment Rate is projected to trend around 4.40 percent in 2022 and 4.20 percent in 2023, according to our econometric models. Samuel Kobina Annim, a government statistician, said the country needed to remedy growing youth unemployment, given its impact on inflation, interest rates, and economic output.

Among the youth, unemployment is worse. Of Ghana’s youth, (18-35 years of age), 13.7% are unemployed and that is with the assumption that these estimated figures are correct. In reality, the figures are probably much higher.

Fundamentally the cause of youth unemployment in Ghana includes inadequate job creation: Even though the economy of Ghana is said to be one of the economies that are doing well in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of about more than 30 million, the stimulation growth and support job creation are the two most critical challenges that are confronting Ghana generally today. Job creation is very critical especially to the youth today, this is because the growing number of youth does not align with the job created in the country and this has been a difficult obstacle to the youth of Ghana Today.

Secondly, Poor access to quality education: this problem has been an indicator of causing the high rate of unemployment among the youth not only in Ghana but the whole African countries. We all know as a fact that education opens doors to brilliant career opportunities; it creates better prospects in career and growth financially, emotionally, socially, and intellectually. It enables the progress of a nation and enriches society and family but In this regard, about half of the working-age population has acquired just basic education which only enables them to read and write with no employable skills to secure employment in the formal segment of the labor market (BaahBoateng, 2013).

Given this, most of the youth that has had higher levels of education do not have adequate skills and they also lack the experience to secure a job for their selves. High-quality education should impact hands-on skills to individuals to make them employable and able to contribute to transforming the structure of the economy as a country develops. Yet, amid increased educational access and enrollment in sub-Saharan Africa, and to Ghana, has the prevailing educational system has not successfully commissioned this task- it turns out that education and training at all levels are far from the quality requires to transform economies in the region.

The reason why this problem has to be solved in Ghana is that unemployment has an immense effect on the country not only the contributions to detrimental to the economy but also the Psychological effects on the youth in the country. The lack of employment opportunities in Ghana has to have a lot of social implications for the country. Youth unemployment promotes rural-urban migration and a wide range of social vices. This has resulted in making all the youth from the rural areas come down to the urban in search of greener pastures and in the process turn to involve in armed robbery and other kinds of social vices which are not healthy to the economy and the country as a whole.

Studies reveal that many unemployed youths feel marginalized, pessimistic, and lacking in control over their lives. In a meta-analysis on the impact of unemployment on mental health, Paul and Moser (2009) noted that individuals who are unemployed show more distress than employed individuals. This unemployment has really made the Ghanaian youth so depressed with mental health: they turn to engage in quick money-making schemes, where the little money they have, they invest it in such schemes and at the end of the day they lose it all. Recently a Ghanaian student was a victim of such a case, where he used all of his university fees for such and he lost all of the money: he then took his own life because of that. There are many examples of such situations.

To conclude, unemployment in Ghana has really been a difficult hurdle that needs to be taken a stronger look at, from inadequate job creation to poor access to quality education to the lack of adequate skills possessed by the higher-level acquired by youth. Ghana has looked to solve the problem and this is not only the problem of the policymakers in Ghana but a problem for each and every individual in the country to make right.

All this is caused by poor access to education most of the youth that have had higher levels of education do not have adequate skills and they also lack the experience to secure a job.