An associate professor and the Head of Organisation and Human Resource department at the University of Ghana, Professor Kwesi Amponsah Tawiah, has intimated that for the issue of unemployment to reduce in the country, we have to do it through research and development.
Speaking during a discussion on the 3 million jobs created, as posited by the Minister-designate for labour and employment, he stated that, the government should move on to be creating real jobs in the country and to achieve that, research will help analyse the supply value chain and in turn create employment.
“Well I have indicted in some of my research that, yes indeed, the way to curb unemployment, through research and development. And through research and development, we will be adding value to the products that we export, the value chain, in so doing creates a number of employment.
“Let us look at timber, let us look at diamond, gold and oil palm. If we look at almost all of these things within the value chain, if we add value to all of these things, we are bound to create some more employment in the country and I mean real employment.”
Professor Kwesi Amponsah Tawiah
Touching on the figures the Minister designate mentioned, he stated that, there was a bit of a challenge as to the fact that, the constituents of the data is not known, that is, if the figures were based on the formal or the informal sector. He also noted that, data is of much relevance in assessing employment and to also aid in research to inform decision making.
“These figures that are going round, for us in academia and for who conducts research, many at times when we talk about unemployment, the challenge we have is that, we tend to fuse in underemployment and that is what confuses the data. In the situation where we currently find ourselves, the government through the YEA, NABCo, and the other initiatives the government put in place, has added to the employment rate in the country.”
Professor Kwesi Amponsah Tawiah
He then lauded the government for keeping the youth active by creating various employment agencies for the youth to get engaged. However, he urged that, government should be moving towards creating real employment where these individuals will find themselves utilizing their knowledge, skills and abilities actively in areas that will help transform the economy.
Mr. Austin Gameh, Labor Consultant also contributing to the discussion averred that, data collection in the country is a challenge and as a results, actual figures are not given since the data is not gathered.
He further said that, Ghana’s labor force is largely dominated by the informal sector and therefore looking at all the economic factors, the number of employment the minster designate gave as 3 million is fair since we cannot expect the government to create jobs in the manner in which we expect but however stated that, if the figures are true indeed, then the number of employment should have reduced drastically.
Also speaking in the discussion, Mohammed Afum, a Labour Analyst, also indicated that his concern is with the reliability of the figures government is putting out as being the quantum of jobs that it has created.
He posited that, if the institutions involved in the data collection are not doing their work well then it makes the collected data that resulted in the number of employment a bit doubtful.
He also questioned the fact that the minister designate did not state the type of job that had been created.
“What kind of jobs have been created; are they permanent, are they part time; like those in the construction industry where the contract takes two or three years and after that the workers are laid off?”
Mohammed Afum
He then indicated that according to SSNIT only 1.6 million people had been registered as of 2020, thereby questioning if there was really employment of that number as stated by the Minister-designate. He also posited that the figures were expected to be disintegrated for a total breakdown of the various sectors in which the employment took place. unemployment
