africa

7. Productivity, Jobs, and
Growth in Africa: Six Pieces
of the Puzzle
Vijaya Ramachandran
Center for Global Development
African countries have undergone significant macroeconomic reforms since the
late 1980s. Why have these reforms not resulted in more jobs in the formal sector?
Why have we not seen more growth in the private sector? In this essay, I present
six charts that describe the situation with regard to employment and growth in the
formal sector, and conclude with some possible explanations for what we observe
in Africa. The text accompanying each chart is excerpted from three recent working
papers—two of these, on labor costs and productivity, are coauthored with Alan Gelb
and Christian Meyer (2013, 2014) and the third, on job creation, is coauthored with
Leonardo Iacovone and Martin Schmidt (2013).
7.1 African manufacturing is declining
The share of manufacturing as a percentage of GDP has been declining across
Africa, from around 16 percent in 1980 to a little over 10 percent in 2010 (Figure 7.1).
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