Youth unemployment remains one of Ghana’s most pressing national challenges, but we may be asking the wrong question when we demand to know how many jobs a government has created. Government is not a businessman and cannot sustainably become the principal employer of a growing population. Its more important responsibility is to create an environment in which businesses can start, survive, expand and employ people.
Successive governments have introduced employment programmes, and the public sector continues to recruit teachers, nurses, security personnel, administrators and other essential workers. Yet Ghana has not built an economy capable of generating enough sustainable jobs for its young population.
This is not simply an NPP or NDC problem. Both parties have governed Ghana, and under both we have heard employment promises, programme names, campaign slogans and impressive job-creation figures. Governments change, programmes are renamed and new promises are made, but unemployment remains a major concern.
Ghana must therefore move beyond political slogans and rethink the philosophy of job creation.
Government Must Create the Environment
Government certainly has an important role in employment, but that role should not be confused with directly employing everybody.
A country needs doctors, teachers, nurses, police officers, engineers and public administrators, but there is a limit to how many workers taxpayers can sustainably support on the government payroll. Large-scale employment must ultimately come from a productive private sector.
Instead of asking only, “How many jobs has the government created?”, we should also ask, “How many businesses has government policy enabled to grow and employ more people?”
That may be a better measure of successful employment policy.
A government that creates conditions for 10,000 small businesses to employ five additional workers each has indirectly helped generate 50,000 jobs without adding those workers to the public payroll.
Bring Ghana's Businesspeople to the Table
Government should convene a serious National Business, SME and Youth Employment Forum, bringing together established businesses, SMEs, prospective entrepreneurs, banks, universities, technical institutions, labour organisations, young people and representatives of the Ghanaian diaspora.
This should not be another conference dominated by political speeches and photographs. Government should listen to businesses and ask one simple question:
“What is preventing you from expanding and employing more people?”
The answers may include expensive electricity, high financing costs, inadequate infrastructure, taxation, regulatory delays, lack of machinery, limited markets or shortages of appropriately skilled workers.
A second question should follow:
“If this obstacle is addressed, how much can you expand and how many additional people can you employ?”
That changes the employment conversation from political promises to measurable economic outcomes.
If a manufacturer can employ another 50 people after expanding production, government should examine what is preventing that expansion. If an SME can move from five employees to twenty with appropriate financing and market access, helping that enterprise grow may be more sustainable than creating another temporary government employment scheme.
SMEs Should Be Treated as Future Employers
Ghana constantly encourages young people to become entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurship requires more than motivational speeches and training workshops.
A young person may have a viable idea for an agro-processing company, engineering workshop, technology business, commercial farm or manufacturing enterprise but still be unable to obtain affordable financing or the equipment needed to begin production.
Banks and financial institutions must therefore be part of the employment discussion. Government can support credible businesses through properly designed credit guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms without becoming the direct financier of every enterprise.
Support should be transparent and based on viability rather than political connections. Businesses receiving significant public support should also demonstrate results in investment, production, training and employment.
The objective should be to help viable businesses move from employing two people to ten, from ten to fifty, and eventually from fifty to hundreds.
Education Must Connect With Industry
There is also little value in producing thousands of graduates and only afterwards asking where they can work.
Businesses should have a stronger voice in discussions about the skills universities, technical universities and vocational institutions are developing. If Ghana wants to expand agriculture, manufacturing, construction, technology, renewable energy, tourism, mining services and logistics, educational institutions must understand the skills these industries will require.
Students also need greater access to meaningful internships and apprenticeships before graduation.
Education, industrial development and employment policy cannot continue operating as separate worlds.
The Diaspora Wants to Invest — But There Is Another Problem
Ghana's diaspora should also become an important part of the employment strategy.
Many Ghanaians abroad have accumulated professional experience, technology, capital and international networks and would genuinely like to establish businesses at home. However, the barriers they encounter are not always taxation, electricity or bureaucracy.
There is another uncomfortable issue Ghana must discuss: mindset, trust and accountability.
I speak from personal experience.
I once established a computer school in Ghana to train young people in programming and related computer skills. The business employed more than ten local people and was contributing to skills development and employment. Because I lived abroad, however, I had to entrust its daily operation to people on the ground. Management and accountability problems eventually caused the business to collapse, forcing me to suspend the operation.
My experience should not be generalised to every diaspora investor or local manager, but similar stories are frequently heard among Ghanaians abroad. Some invest their savings at home only to encounter poor record-keeping, misuse of company resources, weak accountability or situations where those entrusted with managing the business focus more on what they can personally obtain from it than on helping the enterprise survive and grow.
When that happens, the investor is not the only loser. Workers lose their jobs, young people lose opportunities, communities lose economic activity and Ghana may lose an investor permanently.
This is why mindset matters to development.
An enterprise must be seen as an institution that needs to survive, reinvest and grow. If everybody connected with it regards it mainly as a source of immediate personal benefit, eventually there will be no business left from which anybody can benefit.
Protect Diaspora Investment Through Better Systems
Government cannot legislate honesty, but it can help create systems that make diaspora investment safer.
Ghana should consider a structured Diaspora Enterprise Support System connecting investors abroad with credible professional managers, accountants, auditors, legal advisers, banks and business-development organisations.
Digital technology should also make it possible for an investor living in Tokyo, London, Toronto or New York to monitor sales, inventory, payroll and financial transactions in Ghana rather than depending entirely on informal reports.
Diaspora investors themselves must also change how they operate. A relative or friend should not automatically become a business manager simply because he or she is trusted personally. Competence, professional management, clear responsibilities and accountability must come first.
Government should therefore stop merely telling the diaspora, “Come and invest in Ghana.”
It should be able to answer a more important question:
“If I invest in Ghana while living abroad, what systems exist to help me protect, professionally manage and grow my business?”
Answering that question could unlock significant diaspora investment and employment.
Employment Policy Must Survive NPP and NDC
Ghana also needs an employment strategy that survives changes of government.
If an NPP administration introduces a programme that genuinely helps businesses expand, an NDC government should improve it rather than abandon it simply because it originated under its political opponent. The same principle should apply when the positions are reversed.
Factories, farms and businesses do not operate according to four-year electoral cycles. Investors plan for decades. Employment policy must therefore have greater continuity than Ghanaian politics often allows.
This is why the proposed National Business, SME and Youth Employment Forum should lead to a National Employment and Enterprise Compact involving government, businesses, financial institutions, educational institutions, labour, young people and the diaspora.
Businesses should identify what prevents expansion and indicate what additional employment could reasonably follow if those obstacles are removed. Government can then concentrate on infrastructure, financing mechanisms, skills, regulation, market access and other areas where public policy can make a measurable difference.
Let the Jobs Speak
Ghana will not solve youth unemployment by trying to put every young person on the government payroll. Neither will NPP or NDC solve it through another round of employment slogans.
Government's greatest contribution may be to create the conditions under which thousands of independent Ghanaian businesses can succeed.
Maintain economic stability. Provide reliable infrastructure and energy. Reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. Improve access to finance. Connect education with industry. Encourage responsible diaspora investment. Protect legitimate businesses and reward productive expansion.
Then allow entrepreneurs to create, invest, produce and employ.
The real evidence of successful employment policy should not be politicians standing on platforms announcing how many jobs they claim to have created.
It should be businesses across Ghana saying:
“We are expanding. We need more workers.”
When that becomes common across the country, Ghana will need fewer employment slogans because the jobs themselves will speak.
Isaac Yaw Asiedu PhD
Author: Shifting Mindsets for Sustainable Development in Africa: Political Economy Perspective
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK 2025
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