The Ghana Statistical Service has revealed that 1.76 million persons were unemployed in the third quarter of 2022 despite claims by the Vice President of creating over 2 million jobs.
Speaking at the launch of the third quarter labour statistics report of the Ghana Household Income and Expenditure Survey, government statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Anim explained that out of the 1.76 million unemployed persons, two out of every three unemployed persons were females.
The GSS further explained that “across the three quarters, about 157,000 persons experienced an unemployment spell that is they were unemployed in all the quarters.”
“Close to 7.5 million persons remained employed throughout the three quarters out of the about 11 million persons employed in each quarter.
This indicates that across the three quarters, about 3.5 million persons were moving in and out of employment depicting vulnerabilities.” He added.
Meanwhile, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in a recent statement revealed that the Akufo-Addo-led government has created over 2 million jobs in both private and public sectors in the past six years.
“During the NDC administration, there were no jobs, they created unemployment, they were not creating jobs, we had the graduate unemployed association, they were creating unemployment, but I have been looking at the data lately and NPP we have created 2.2 million jobs.
“975, 000 are in the private sector, 1.2 million in the public sector, this is verifiable and identifiable data which is available.
“NDC were creating unemployment but we create jobs. We are not done yet because there are more jobs for us to create”, the Vice President stressed.
He added that, but when it comes to job creation, no government since Independence has created more jobs than the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, anybody can challenge me and I will provide the data.
Responding to the Vice President’s claims, the communications officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has described the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as an “unrepentant liar” for claiming that 2.2 million jobs have been created by the Akufo-Addo administration since 2017.
Mr. Gyamfi in a post on Facebook in response to Dr. Bawumia’s claims said unemployment has almost doubled from 8.4% in 2016 to 14% as of 2021 and found the comments by the Vice President as a joke.
“Official rate of unemployment has almost doubled from 8.4% in 2016 to 14% as of 2021, according to the GSS. Youth unemployment is at an all-time high.
“Massive job losses have become the order of the day due to the economic mismanagement of the Bawumia-led EMT. Yet, our unrepentant liar of a VEEP claims his government has created 2.2 million jobs. What a joke! The name BAWUMIA will occupy a comfortable place in the Guinness book of lies.”
The data revealed in the report by the Ghana Statistical Service has raised concerns from individuals indicating that 1.76 million unemployed persons is alarming and should be a matter of concern to policymakers.
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