Ignatious Baffoe Awuah
The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatious Baffoe Awuah, has stated that government will soon roll out a system to tackle the country’s unemployment challenges.
A survey conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in 2015 dubbed: “Labour Force Survey (LFS)” revealed that over one million Ghanaians above age 15 are unemployed.
Estimating the total population of the country to be over 27 million, made up of 47.7% males and 52.3% females, the report said about 13.7 million people are above age 15 and eligible for employment and that about 14 million are employed, one million unemployed, three million are not identified in the labour force, and these people are either pregnant, house wives, disabled, pensioners among others.
Paid employees are a little over 1.8 million. The total unemployment rate for Ghana is 11.9% and it is higher for females, 12.5% relative to males 11.5%. This is an indication that females are more likely to be unemployed than their male counterparts.
Upper East region recorded the highest unemployment rate of 18.4% while Brong Ahafo recorded the lowest unemployment rate of 8.4%.
The Service sector is the major employer of about 48% while the agriculture come second with about 32%.
Speaking on what the government is doing to tackle the challenge at the report launch Thursday March 23, 2017, Mr. Awuah said a “comprehensive” database is being developed under the auspices of the ministry to match job seekers with the available jobs in the system.
