Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu
About two million young people in Ghana are neither employed nor in education or training, which raises concerns about youth unemployment and the country’s ability to harness its growing youthful population for economic development, according to Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
The Government Statistician, Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu, who disclosed this at the launch of the Ghana in Numbers 2025 publication in Accra yesterday, said about 12 million Ghanaians were aged between 15 and 35, but the country continued to face significant challenges in providing adequate employment and educational opportunities for its young population.
He noted that almost one in three jobseekers aged between 15 and 24 could not find work, while more than six in 10 young people who were neither working nor in education or training were women.
The figures, he said, highlighted the urgency of addressing the barriers preventing young people from accessing employment, education and skills development opportunities.
Dr. Iddrisu warned that the nation’s ability to benefit from its youthful population would depend largely on decisions taken in the coming years to improve education, develop relevant skills and expand employment opportunities.
“Ghana’s youth window is open, but it is closing. Our choices on schooling, skills, jobs in the next 10 years will decide whether it becomes a dividend or a burden,” the Government Statistician said.
According to him, informal employment remains widespread despite a significant expansion in the number of businesses operating in the country.
The GSS’s first Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES-1) recorded 2.64 million business establishments in 2024, nearly three times the number recorded in 2014.
However, the number of people working in those establishments only doubled over the same period, suggesting that the expansion of businesses had not translated into employment growth at the same pace.
Dr. Iddrisu said about 92 percent of businesses in the country operated informally, while more than seven in 10 jobs remained in the informal sector.
He noted that only 7.7 percent of business establishments were classified as formal, with nine in 10 businesses falling within the micro-enterprise category.
The GSS pointed out that although the country’s unemployment rate declined from 14.6 percent in 2023 to 12.8 percent in 2025, the figures on youth unemployment and exclusion from education and training point to persistent challenges in ensuring that economic activity translates into broader employment opportunities.
The Government Statistician stressed the need to support small businesses to expand and formalise, a development that could strengthen their capacity to create jobs and provide more sustainable livelihoods.
Beyond employment, the “Ghana in Numbers 2025” publication highlighted mixed trends in household welfare.
Inflation declined from 54.1 percent in December 2022 to 5.4 percent in December 2025, but food insecurity increased from 37.7 percent in 2024 to 39.8 percent in 2025, affecting an estimated 13 million people.
“The progress is real. But it is not shared evenly,” Dr. Iddrisu said.
He continued that the publication, together with its accompanying online portal, provides national and district-level statistics intended to support evidence-based policymaking, investment and development planning.
Dr. Iddrisu urged policymakers, businesses and investors to use the data to guide their decisions, emphasising that the ultimate objective of producing statistics was to generate practical results.
“For us, producing statistics is no longer the finish line. For us, use is the finish line or, if you want, impact is the finish line,” he said.
By Ernest Kofi Adu