Ghana 2021 Census finds over one million persons are unemployed

A total of 1,551,118 persons aged 15 years above are unemployed in the country while 9,990,237 are employed, according to the 2021 Population and Housing Census figures.

Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the Government statistician, said the unemployment rate among the population aged 15 years above was 13.4 per cent and higher for females with 15.5 per cent and 11.6 per cent for males.

He said about half a million of 487, 470, representing 2.5 per cent of persons aged 15 years above were first time job seekers with almost equal proportion of males of 2.5 per cent and 2.4 per cent females.

Also, more than two in five, representing 45.5 per cent unemployed persons aged 15 years above were available for work but not seeking for employment, of which the youth between 15-35 years constituted 65.8 per cent.

Prof Annim explained that employed persons were those above 15 years who engaged in economic activities and unemployed persons as those above 15 years who did not engage in economic activities.

The figure shows that economic activity among males, which was 63.5 per cent was higher than females of 53. Per cent, with more pronounced variation in the rural areas of 63.6 per cent for males and 51.5 per cent females.

Also, the figure stated that involvement of children in economic activities in Oti Region of 20.8 per cent was more than six times the national figure of 3.2 per cent and prominent in five regions- North East, Savannah, Upper West, Northern and Upper East.

In Greater Accra, children’s involvement in economic activity is mostly in service and sales, constituting 42.6 per cent and children aged 5-14 years engaged in economic activity has 80 per cent of them involved in agriculture-related activities with the highest proportion in Savannah of 89.8 per cent and the least in Greater Accra of 26.2 per cent regions.

The public sector engages about 10 per cent of the employed population aged 15 above, of which 60 per cent are males.

The Government Statistician said the focus of the Census was to provide quality data about the unemployment situation, especially among the youth for policy makers to act.

“Our interests here are first time job seekers and those who are available but not seeking for work and from the data that we have collected, we are prompting policy makers.

“Indeed, some of these people have given up on the economy and this is where we need to rethink for intervention”, he said.

Source: GNA