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Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Hon. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah has reported that the Akufo-Addo government has made progress in addressing the unemployment challenge in the country within 4 years in office.

According to him, the Akufo-Addo government is living up to manifesto promise to set an agenda for job creation as available data indicate that the current government has made some progress so far as job creation is concerned.

Addressing the media at the Ministry of Information in his turn to render an account of his stewardship as a sector minister to Ghanaians, Hon. Baffour-Awuah quoting from the latter part of 2015 survey conducted by the Ghana Living Standard Survey 6 said that the unemployment issue stood at 11.9 per cent.

“The figures to prove this point is that the Ghana Statistical Service in the latter part of 2015 conducted Ghana Living Standard Survey 6 which had as one of its focus the issues of unemployment. they reported that unemployment then was 11.9 per cent. In 2018, a similar survey was conducted and they reported in that survey that unemployment had dropped from 11.9 to 8.4 per cent. In 2019, the later data by the Ministry also indicated that the figure had dropped further to 7.1 per cent and so there has been more than 4.5 percentage drop on unemployment rate within the 4 years that we are reporting on”, he mentioned.

“Indeed, if that is anything to go by, then it means that NPP has actually made progress so far as the issue of unemployment is concerned”, he stressed.

He, however, revealed that the statistics from the Ghana Living Standard Survey 7, indicates that the rate of unemployment is higher among females which is 9.2 than the male by 7.5.

He added that in terms of regional breakdown, Greater Accra recorded the highest unemployment rate of 11.8 per cent, followed by the Ashanti Region with 10.3 per cent and the Volta region recorded the lowest unemployment rate of 5.8 per cent, followed by the Brong Ahafo Region with had 6 per cent.

He further disclosed that the youth unemployment rate has declined from 16.9 per cent to 12.6 per cent; thus, since January 2017, the ministry has continued in line with its mandate to improve the capacities at the national and subnational levels of promotion of decent job opportunities.

Hon. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah again said that his ministry is collaborating with its development partners to improve the capacity of the labour department and its public employment centres; nonetheless, 8 public employment centres in strategic locations, as a result, have been renovated and revamped to enable them to provide active labour market services including job-matching and career guidance and job-seekers.

“These centres include Accra, Tema, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Tarkwa, Tamale and the employment information branch of the labour department. Apart from the routine active labour market functions of the public employment centres, the main purpose of the renovation and other capacity building interventions is to enable these centres and sections of the labour department collect and disseminate labour market information in a timely manner. these among others are some of the efforts being made towards the full operationalization of the Ghana Labour Market Information System”, he disclosed.

He reiterated that a Ghanaian-German jobcentre has been established in Accra just behind the Ministry of Employment Labour Relations to help Ghanaian youth seek job opportunities abroad instead of using an unapproved route to travel outside.