Businesses in the country are still struggling to weather the storms of the pandemic after more than a year Ghana recorded its first COVID-19 case in March 2020.
Latest bulletin from the Bank of Ghana shows that companies’ demand for labor services still remain below its pre-COVID-19 levels in the Ghanaian economy. According to the Bank of Ghana, the number of jobs advertised in selected print and online media, which gauges labor demand in the economy, declined in both the first and second quarters of 2021 relative to what was observed last year.
In the second quarter of this year, a total of 8,251 job adverts were recorded as compared with 9,582 for the second quarter of 2020, indicating a year-on-year decline of 13.9 percent. The willingness of businesses to hire workers in the second quarter of this year also declined significantly over what was recorded in the first quarter.
Lower job vacancies in Q2 compared to Q1
In Q1 2021, a total of 8,840 job adverts were recorded compared to 9,537 recorded in the first quarter of 2020, a year-on-year decline of 7.3 percent.
Similarly, the report indicated that the number of job vacancies advertised between April and June this year dipped by 6.7 percent from 8,840 recorded in the first quarter of 2021.
“The decrease in the number of jobs advertised reflected the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses”.
Bank of Ghana
Sector Distribution
For clarity, Bank of Ghana detailed the sector distribution and skill set of job adverts recorded in the second quarter of 2021. The Services Sector maintained its dominance as the leading job-providing sector in the economy, accounting for 79.0 percent of total job adverts in Q2 2021. This is lower than the share of 80.8 percent recorded in Q2 2020 and 83.1 percent in Q1 2021.
As expected, the Industry followed with a share of 17.4 percent, higher than the 15.2 percent observed in Q2 2020. In Q1, industry accounted for 13.5 percent, marginally down from the 13.6 percent recorded in the first quarter of 2020. This means that there is improvement in the employment levels of companies and businesses within the industry sector.
The Agriculture Sector, touted as the engine of growth, continued to provide the least number of formal employment in the country, recording the least number of job adverts in Q2 . The Agriculture Sector accounted for 3.6 percent of the job adverts during the period, compared with 4.0 percent of total job adverts recorded for Q2 2020.
In Q1, the Agriculture Sector accounted for just 3.4 percent of job adverts compared to 3.2 percent of total job adverts recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2020. This suggests that the distribution of job demands in the country perfectly reflects the contributions of these three sectors to the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
Skill Set of Job Adverts
Further analysis of the Ghanaian labor market conditions revealed that the main requirements for skilled employees were tertiary education qualification(s) with a minimum of three years’ working experience.
The category, classified as Professionals and Technicians, collectively accounted for 51.4 percent of total jobs advertised during the second quarter of 2021. This is higher than the 49.7 percent recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2020.
This was followed by the categories classified as Sales & Other Service Workers with a share of 30.2 percent in Q2 2021, lower than 35.5 percent recorded in Q2 2020. Artisans & Machine Operators recorded an improvement of 9.0 percent in Q2 2021 relative to 8.6 percent in Q2 2020. The share of Secretarial & Clerical Staff specialists also rose to 6.9 percent in Q2 2021, up from 4.7 percent in Q2 2020. The ‘Others’ category of skill sets accounted for 2.2 percent in Q2 2021, a marginal increment from the 1.5 percent recorded in Q2 2020.
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