Gov’t Losing Money Through Graduate Joblessness

Government must be even more worried about youth unemployment in the country than the jobless graduates, the Head of Finance Department at the University of Ghana Business School, Dr Godfred Bokpin has said.

Bokpin explained that the Government stands to lose more if graduates do not get jobs after school, since it cannot recoup its investment in them for as long as they remain jobless.

He told STARR BUSINESS that it will be in the best interest of government to attach some urgency towards tackling unemployment among graduates.

“Every year the Universities are churning out graduates, we must find them work to do because don't forget, the country has invested in these graduates, so you need to put them to work so that they can work and pay back the investment the country has [made in them].”

“…So when they exit from the tertiary institution and they are walking on the streets, the government should be worried more, even than the individuals, because you've made some investments in them, you expect that they are employed and paying taxes, including VAT, consumption tax and the rest of them, then the country gets the return on the investment that they have brought, but as it stands, the private sector is not expanding in a manner that can absorb the excess labour,” he said.

According to the Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana (UGAG), research has shown that some nearly 250,000 potential youth join the labour force annually. The group, which has several tens of thousands of members said out of this number 85,000 plus are graduates and only 5,000 of them are absorbed by the job market.

Minister of Trade and Industries, Ekwow Spio-Gabrah recently offered to meet UGAG to discuss job issues.