Prof. Peter Quartey
Director at the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana, Prof. Peter Quartey, has called on the government to factor in the private sector in its job-creation visions.
According to him this would create sustainable environments for their expansion, and help engage more youth into the working atmosphere.
Indicating that such consideration would ease the burden on government, Prof Quartey stated, “The private sector is the way to go. Government cannot do it alone. You must provide an enabling environment and tax incentives to the private sector to flourish and create the needed jobs otherwise we will choke the public sector and that is not sustainable.”
Prof. Quartey was speaking on the need for President Akufo-Addo to share information regarding the unemployment situation in the country in his recent State of the Nation Address (SONA).
He said though the unemployment situation was not good, the country recorded some positive data, especially in the first and third quarters of 2023, and ought to have been told the citizenry.
“From the Statistical Service report, some 440,000 persons joined the labour force between the first and third quarters of 2023 …so at least there is a positive signal that must be told…. There is a lot of room for improvement. After all, we are not alone in this, there are many African countries struggling with unemployment problems,” he said.
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) 2023 report said the average rate of unemployment in the country rose to 14.7 percent in the first three quarters of 2023. The number of unemployed youth aged between 15 and 35 rose from about 1.2 million to over 1.3 million during the same period with the rate among females consistently higher than males.
Prof. Quartey continued that the most important thing to do was for leadership to find measures that would help to mitigate the problem.
“You will find similar worrying statistics in other countries…What matters is what we are doing to resolve them. For me that is why the President should have taken the advantage,” he added.
BY Samuel Boadi