The Trades Union Congress (TUC) fears of a possible chaos and tension among the youth in the country if urgent measures are not taken to curb the growing unemployment situation.
Consequently, the labour union is asking the government to disregard the warning by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank and lift the freeze on employment in the public- sector.
Secretary-General of the TUC, Mr Kofi Asamoah, said in an interview with the Graphic Business that “we will assess the performance of government mainly on the basis of the number of jobs created during the year and not the level of inflation as the main indicator of its performance”.
The IMF and the World Bank have warned against an over-bloated public sector employment to stem the rising public sector wage bill and have therefore called for a tight fiscal monetary policy.
The IMF and the World Bank have in their Public Expenditure Review document for 2011 asked the government to cut recruitment into the public sector.
The two institutions maintains that the heavy burden of the public sector wage bill remains a major concern.
Between 2002 and 2008, wages absorbed an average of 44.5 per cent of total tax revenue. This number rose to 49.5 per cent in 2009.
But the TUC boss disagrees with “the notion that the public sector is over-bloated. The size of the public sector should not be measured by the size of the public sector wage bill only,” he said.
“It should appropriately be measured by the adequacy of essential services to the people of Ghana”, he stressed.
The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana estimates that about 230,000 youth enter the labour market every year, out of which only two per cent or 4,500 of the number are absorbed into the formal economy.
To the labour union, government has failed to articulate any strategy of its own that addresses the unemployment crisis.
“I regret to say that government has not considered the several proposals submitted to it by the TUC on measures to tackle the unemployment crises”, Mr Asamoah said.
“This portends a danger to the economy as this phenomenon, if not dealt with could explode in our face”, adding that “the trend is very scary, from where I sit, if the situation is not addressed, we are likely to see some tension among the jobless youth”, the labour boss warned.
Reports from the UN's International Labour Organisation shows Africa needs to generate 2.4 million jobs a year for the next five years in order to reach the UN’s goal of slashing unemployment to the current global average of 6.5 per cent by 2015.
But Employment and Social Welfare Minister, Mr Enoch Teye Mensah, had in an earlier interview with the Graphic Business said the picture is not that gloomy, considering the fact that government is examining various strategies in its review of the country’s employment policy that is yet to be presented to Cabinet.
”To contain the wage bill, the government has adopted a selective hiring freeze under which new recruitment is principally in the education and health services"
“The problem we are facing is not that of unemployment but under-employment: that is people who are just doing anything to survive”, he said.
“These are the people with no social protection whatsoever, and they are the ones we see selling on the streets and doing all sorts of menial jobs”, he added.
The review of the employment policy will entail skills training and employment placement to the teeming under employed.
At a presentation on the State of the Ghanaian Economy report by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research in Accra, Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Economic Division of the policy think tank, Dr Felix Asante, said the continent faces many challenges, one of which is economic growth rate that are not able to create sufficient employment opportunities for an ever increasing demand for jobs.
He said inadequate employment also exacerbates poor human development and restricts social and political participation. It is also agreed that youth employment is a critical element of a nation’s stability and a proven antidote to the loss of hope which often results in social and political turmoil.
The picture is most dim for young Africans. The ILO says that 20 per cent of all Africans between the ages of 25 and 30 are jobless. Ghana is also faced with that problem- the nation mobilised a National Youth Employment Programme in 2006.
In the first four months of the initiative roughly 40,000 jobs were created, about half of those in agriculture. That industry is seen as risky by the ILO because many of its employees have "low and unstable" incomes.
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