The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffuor Awuah has revealed that the Akufo-Addo government has been able to create a total of 611,397 new jobs in the formal sector.

At a press encounter on Thursday, 15 August 2019, Mr Awuah revealed that the current unemployment rate is 7.1% and explained that: “People who are actually not working and made efforts to look for work and did not obtain work summed up to 422,000 [3.7%]. So, strictly speaking, these are the unemployed persons that we have on our hand”.

He continued: “I will also agree that somebody will decide that I will not go and look for jobs at all because even if I go, I will not get, so, I will make no effort”.

“Their number is 417,500. So, if you add that to those who are looking for work but are not getting it, the percentage then moves to 7.1%.”

Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) absorbed 343,458 out of the total figure with 267,939 getting placements in other formal private sector areas.

According to him, the government’s flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme witnessed the provision of 1,539,000 new jobs in the agriculture sector.

Unemployment figures by Statista.com which cites the World Bank as its primary data source, however, suggests an increasing trend in unemployment in Ghana.

In 2016, the unemployment rate was 6.63% which shot up to 6.71% in 2018.