Youth Unemployment: The Hindrance To Quality Livelihood

The ultimate desire of almost every young person in Ghana is just to get a job, the decent and the good ones would be thought about later. In Ghana, for a young person to earn a good and a decent job is tantamount to a lifetime breakthrough – the prayer request of many. Isn’t it a basic live requirement for citizens to get jobs once they get ripe to join the workforce? In the case of Ghana, the situation is quite different. The skilled, unskilled and more often graduates lament over the lack of jobs in the country. Young persons would have to hustle their way through, even for them to live by “hand to mouth”.

Even those who are working have nothing to show for it, as they receive very little monies as wages and salaries. Their welfare is as well not catered for. These young persons, say, they have no other option than to work to receive those little monies hence, employers have taken advantage of the unavailability of job alternatives and their vulnerability. Contrarily, employers complain about the huge monies government take them as taxes, other regulatory expenses and how their businesses are doing very bad. As a result, their businesses fetches little income and this adversely affect monies their workers receive for the services they provide. Could this also be blamed on the low wage rate in the private and informal sector? In June this year, the National Tripartite Committee announced this year’s minimum wage, which pegged at GH₵ 12.53 daily. This means that, averagely, you earn GH₵ 1.6 in an hour. If an employer decides to strictly go by this payment, how can such peanuts, regarded as payment for job done, cover feeding, rent and other basic expenses? This is indeed a hindrance to quality livelihood.

Youthful age is supposed to be a period full of exuberance, enthusiasm, and eagerness to venture new endeavors. A period that gives the individual ample time and liberty to plan and prepare for a quality and self-satisfying future. For the Ghanaian youth, these are mere abstracts, as they are met with hopelessness, fuzzy future, and also deprived of opportunities which could enable them be of immense importance to their families and the society at large.

Albeit, erstwhile governments and the current have introduced some employment and entrepreneurship initiatives meant to reduce this cankerous social and economic menace, yet still about 12% of the country’s youth are unemployed, according to a recent report from the Ghana Statistical Service. The report again indicated that over 50% of the youth are currently underemployed. If those initiatives rolled out by government were run effectively, their manifestations would have served as evidences to confirm the governments’ efforts towards the quelling of this problem. Much too often, these initiatives rolled out are just for “window dressing” and unnecessary political adulations. The future of the youth is not promised even in their own motherland.

Every year, thousands of young people graduate from school yet only a few get either temporary or permanent employment within the first five years of completion. Government encourages young people to go through education but has failed to provide avenues for these graduates to apply knowledge acquired form school. I must acknowledge graduates who are engaged in all sort commercial activities to earn a living and to make a difference to change the narrative even in the face such a teething system with unsupportive governments. Just recently, the Finance minister, at the congregation at the UPSA, made mention that the government’s payroll is full and as a result, graduates should venture into entrepreneurship. I perceive this as a mantra used by government to encrust the fiasco that it has dipped itself into when it comes to job creation. This he said, invoked a lot of commentaries. I think that a government that has failed to plan for its youth is no in a position to advise them about what to do. Graduates who have done well to engage in some sort of businesses to create employment for themselves and others don’t get the support from government. It would have been encouraging instead if the Minister had spelt out how the government intends to bolster startups and growing businesses owned by these young ones. This, the government doesn’t take delight in, because, even those who have been in business for a long time almost all the time bemoan over lack of support from government.

Youth unemployment is currently the most talked about topic in the media space. Recently, a group of young Ghanaians formed a coalition called “Fix the country” and began a strong advocacy on social media which attracted national attention. This was in an attempt to draw the attention of government about the hardships young people are going through in the country, especially, the issue of unavailability of jobs.

The surge in crime, drug abuse and addiction, prostitution and other deviant behaviors amongst the youth can be ascribe to the negative social implications of youth unemployment. A study conducted by Baafi-Frimpong examined the social cost of educated youth unemployment found out that, streetism and other social vices such as stealing, drug abuse and prostitution are all results of youth unemployment. Studies also reveal that unemployed youth feel marginalized, pessimistic and lack control over their lives. These lead to poorer subjective well-being, lower self-esteem and higher levels of depression, distress and anxiety. These are what the youths are turned into.

Youth unemployment in Ghana is as well a threat to National Security as the energies of the active and vibrant members of the society cannot be leveraged towards the development of the nation. Not far-fetched, the current recruitments happening in the various national security agencies have seen legion of the youth troop in at the recruitment premises for the exercise. This I can say, is a surviving option for the youth and not what they have passion for. The security agencies are supposed to be filled with citizens who have the desire to protect the sovereignty of the country by any kosha means possible not those who are finding means to merely earn a living.

Some erudite, international organizations and research institutes have made suggestions on how all stakeholders can help to at least abate this problem. The suggestions encompass entrepreneurship, agriculture, industrialization, private sector empowerment, apprenticeship and others. The government and all other stakeholders must be poised to handling this situation to render the youth a quality livelihood because in a country where citizens get jobs to do, poverty and crime diminishes as many thrive to work their way out of privations of all forms.

Daniel Nartey