NDC unveils ‘comprehensive’ strategy to create 1.7m jobs, calls out NPP on mounting unemployment crisis

On Monday, October 14, 2024, the National Democratic Congress unveiled what it describes as a comprehensive employment and jobs creation policy for a presidency led by John Mahama.

According to the NDC, 1.7 million new jobs will be generated between 2025 and 2029.

This will take in the 300,000 predicted new workers annually and bring down the existing unemployment rate by 120,000 annually.

At an Accra briefing, the party’s Employment and Jobs Creation committee made an announcemen

NDC will achieve these targets despite the debilitating employment deficit and economic crisis that the NPP will leave behind come 7th January 2025, through a strategy resting on five 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

At a media engagement on 25th August 2024, the NPP presidential candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, repeated his claim that the NPP has created 2.3 million jobs in 7 years and that unemployment is declining. He offered no evidence for his claims because they are untrue.

Joblessness and related poverty, hopelessness, and despair are on the increase across the length and breadth of the country. The Ghana Statistical Service’s Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey states that 2.1 million Ghanaians, representing 14.7% of our labour force, are unemployed. This is an increase of more than 1 million unemployed people since 2017. The unemployment rate has increased from 8.3% in 2017 to 14.7% by 2023. That is the truth.

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.

Indeed, between 2017 and 2023, Ghana’s economy, on average, employed less than 45% of the persons entering the labour force each year. The NPP-managed economy created more than 170,000 newly unemployed persons each year. The NPP created more unemployment than employment in their eight years in power. Indeed, unemployed Ghanaians doubled from 1 million in 2017 to 2.1 million by 2023. This is also the truth.

As many as 7.3 million Ghanaians (24.5% of the population) are multi-dimensionally poor, while a whopping 8.4 million people go without food daily. This is the painful truth.

Dr Bawumia’s figures are deceitful. They disrespect the intelligence of 56% of new entrants into the labour force each year who cannot find jobs, and millions fall into hardcore unemployment – 1.3 million young people “Not in Education, Employment, or Training” (NEET).

The Bitter Fruits of the NPP’s Unemployment Debacle

The reality is that our so-called “economic growth” has been jobless under NPP. Our “growth” represents irresponsible borrowings and taxes – and not production. Our graduates pour out of tertiary and specialised training institutions just to join the ranks of the unemployed. Our artisans, farmers, and entrepreneurs see their livelihoods disappear as rampant inflation reduces the value of their already meagre incomes and their ability to create jobs.

The NDC Job Creation Strategy

President John Dramani and the NDC have a clear, actionable strategy to reverse the NPP’s dismal employment record. Our strategy rests on five clear pillars.

1. We will modernise the Legal and Institutional Environment to accelerate decent job creation. This will include accelerated implementation of the Ghana Labour Market
   Information System, updating the Labour Bill 2024 into an Employment Act to replace the existing Labour Act 2023, and putting in place a Bilateral Labour migration framework to support safe, orderly and regular labour migration of Ghanaians to other countries, facilitate access to decent work abroad, and ensure respect for human rights and fundamental labour rights for Ghanaian workers who migrate.
2. We will launch the ‘Aspire 24” programme to equip Ghanaian workers and enterprises with the values, mindset, skills, tools, work ethic, and incentives to increase productivity and thrive in the 24-hour Economy.
3. We will establish a National Employment Trust (NET) to collaborate with Enterprise Support Organizations to provide financial and technical support to start-ups and growth-stage SMEs, making them growth and job creation engines in Ghana.
4. We will roll out the “Levelling-Up” programme to . This will include, among others, the establishment of the Women’s Bank, reform and enhancement of pensions for workers in the informal sector, and provision of digital skills for persons with disabilities.
5. Finally, we will set up the National Employment Coordination Committee with representatives from the Government, Labour, Employers, Students, and the Informal Sector to support the Minister of Employment in coordinating, implementing, We are very much aware of the challenges to creating a robust employment ecosystem, considering the economy’s decay. However, these challenges are surmountable. With deliberate and painstaking policy interventions anchored on the 24-hour economy, we aim to create 1.7 million jobs between 2025 and 2029 and systematically reduce unemployment to below 5% by 2034, if not earlier.

Conclusion

Accompanying this press release is a booklet that provides further details of our plan to guide an all-inclusive job-creation drive.

The Mahama government will hit the ground running with bold, practical policies that will transform our economy and create jobs for the unemployed and first-time entrants into the labour market. We invite all Ghanaians to join us in our quest to build an economy centred on job creation and inclusive growth.

Together, we can reset and build the Ghana we want.

[signed]Goosie Tanoh
Chairman – Employment and Jobs Creation Committee
NDC