National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Monday, October 14, 2024,unveiled a detailed employment and job creation plan for John Mahama’s presidency.
According to the NDC, the party aims to create 1.7 million jobs between 2025 and 2029.
This initiative will absorb the estimated 300,000 individuals entering the workforce annually and reduce unemployment by 120,000 each year.
The NDC’s Employment and Jobs Creation committee presented these plans at a briefing in Accra.
Despite the significant employment gap and economic challenges expected to be inherited from the NPP administration by January 7, 2025, the NDC intends to meet these goals through a strategy based on five key pillars.
We call this strategy MAN-UP-C:
a. M – Modernise and revamp employment institutions and legislation focused on job
creation;
b. A – “Aspire 24” programme to reorient employer and employee mindsets’;
c. N – “National Employment Trust” to mobilise resources for a concerted jobs push;
d. UP – “Levelling Up” programme to ensure inclusiveness in employment; and
e. C – Coordination through a high-level “National Employment Coordination Committee”
The Truth About Unemployment
During a media interaction on August 25, 2024, the NPP’s presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, reiterated his claim that the party has generated 2.3 million jobs over a seven-year period and that unemployment is on the decline. However, he provided no evidence to substantiate these assertions, likely because they are inaccurate.
In reality, unemployment and its associated challenges—poverty, hopelessness, and despair—are on the rise across the country. Data from the Ghana Statistical Service’s Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey reveals that 2.1 million Ghanaians, or 14.7% of the workforce, are currently unemployed.
This represents an increase of over one million jobless individuals since 2017. The unemployment rate has jumped from 8.3% in 2017 to 14.7% by 2023, which is the actual situation.
Additionally, many in employment cannot make ends meet. Of the 11.2 million people employed in 2023, an overwhelming 8.2 million (almost 70%) are in vulnerable work with low-paying jobs, no social protection, and poor working conditions.
They are trapped in a perennial cycle of poverty.
This is the category that we call “working poor”. This is also the truth.