DRAFT TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND ...

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3.0 THE LABOUR MARKET IN GHANA
As Nakanishi (2006) aptly described it in relation to NVTI graduates, the labour market in
Ghana is a “difficult labour market.” The labour absorption capacity of the market is low and
not growing fast enough to cope with the hundreds of thousands of graduates entering the
market at various levels of the educational system. Sub-section 3.1 presents facts and figures
that describe the labour market situation in Ghana.
3.1 Facts and Figures
As pointed out by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (2008, p. 152),
“Employment and unemployment data in Ghana are either soft or non-existent and this makes
the analysis of employment difficult.” Tables 3.1 to 3.4 and Appendices C1 – C10 give some
insights into the labour market situation in Ghana. The data in the tables point to the
following conclusions:
(a) Agriculture has been the largest employer of both men and women, and though the share
of agricultural employment dropped from 61.8% in 1960 to 53.1% in 2000 (Appendix
C1) (and is still falling), agriculture remains the main source of employment, especially
for illiterate members of the labour force.
(b) Selling (wholesale and retail) and “Production” and transport equipment operation are the
next major sources of employment. Together the two sources provide employment to
about 72% of women in the workforce. Men have a better spread of employment options
than women, even though about 50% of them are in agriculture-related occupations.
(c) The private informal sector (agriculture and non-agriculture) caters for the employment of
about 85% of the labour force in Ghana (see Table 3.2). In the rural areas, about 92% of
the labour force worked in the private informal sector at the time of the Core Welfare
Survey in 2003. In the urban areas, public and private formal employment engaged about
23% of the labour force. On the whole, the probability of someone being employed in the
formal sector (public and private) was only about 14%. This is confirmed by the
Education Sector Performance Report, 2008 (MoESS, 2008, p137): “With only 15
percent of the national workforce employed in the formal economy, a growing informal
sector will have to absorb the growing population of economically active youth.”
Table 3.1 Distribution of the Work Force by Occupation and Gender (15+)
Occupation All Male Female
Professionals, Technical, etc 6.6 8.3 4.8
Administrative & Managerial 0.3 0.4 0.2
Clerical and Related Workers 4.5 7.0 1.9
Sales workers 15.2 8.6 22.0
Service workers 5.8 4.3 7.4
Agric/Animal Husbandry/Forestry/Fishing 50.3 50.8 49.7
Production/Transport Equipment operators 16.0 18.6 13.4
Other workers 1.3 2.0 0.5
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: 2000 Population Census of Ghana (as cited by Baah & Achakoma, 2007, p. 7)