Labor Economist and Professor at the University of Ghana[UG], Dr William Boateng has cited the structure of the Ghanaian labor market and neglect of the informal sector for the low unemployment rate.
Ghana’s unemployment rate is currently pegged at 3%. This is according to the Ghana Statistical Service.
Many have questioned the figure with some saying the figure does not represent the true levels of unemployment in Ghana.
But speaking on the Citi BreakFast Show, Dr Boateng disclosed that “unemployment in Ghana you may think it is low but it depends on the structure of the labor market,”
He further added that, “The labor market in Africa doesn’t give room for people to be in the informal sector, and therefore if somebody comes out of school the person is actually seeking work and the person is not getting a job, the informal sector is so limited that he cannot go there and seek refuge and therefore he will remain unemployed”
“When you come to Ghana you will realize that if somebody finishes Junior high school[J.H.S] and is looking for work, and he is not getting it, because the minimum qualification for entering the formal sector is secondary education” – he noted
He concluded by saying that “We don’t actually have the institutions and the law to get all these things covered, even if we cannot conduct surveys for the informal sector to cover everybody. In the formal sector we should be able to do something, all registered establishments should be asked to provide data on people employed, retired also that even if we cannot cover people in the informal sector we have the formal sector covered.”
By: Benjamin Epton Owusu/Citifmonline.com/Ghana