The World Bank has committed to supporting Ghana’s job creation initiative through a Jobs and Growth Analysis aimed at helping the country identify new opportunities for employment and inclusive economic expansion.
The commitment follows a high‑level engagement between Ghana’s Minister of Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, and the Managing Director and Chief Knowledge Officer of the World Bank, Paschal Donohoe, during which they discussed Ghana’s economic transition and future development priorities.
The minister described the engagement as productive, briefing Donohoe on the progress made as a result of Ghana’s strategic focus on resetting the economy during the first year of President John Dramani Mahama’s second term.
He noted that, despite macroeconomic improvements, job creation remains a core challenge, with unemployment standing at about 12.8% in the third quarter of 2025, an easing from 14% in 2024 but still a pressing concern, particularly among youth.
“I noted that last year was focused on resetting the economy and placing it firmly on the path to sustainability. Today, one of our major challenges is unemployment, particularly among our youth,” Forson said.
Acknowledging the limits of public sector capacity to absorb the growing labour force, he emphasised that Ghana must implement major policies and programmes that sustainably create jobs, saying:
“Africa has a rapidly growing youthful population, and it is clear that public sector employment alone cannot provide the opportunities our young people need.”
Forson expressed appreciation for the sustained multilateral partnership with the World Bank, particularly with respect to advancing analytical work focused on employment creation.
In response, Donohoe commended Ghana’s fiscal progress and pledged that the World Bank would provide data and analytical support to help identify new areas for sustainable job creation, reinforcing the Bank’s readiness to continue its engagement with the country.
The Jobs and Growth Analysis is a World Bank diagnostic tool designed to assess the structural drivers of growth and employment within an economy. It combines extensive data modelling with sectoral analysis to pinpoint high‑potential sectors where policies, investment, and skills development can yield the greatest job‑creation impact.
For Ghana, the exercise is expected to highlight opportunities in sectors such as agribusiness, manufacturing, digital services, and green energy, and to inform strategic policy decisions that can drive broad‑based growth and expand labour market inclusion.
Recent economic data reinforces the context for this support. Ghana’s economy has shown resilience with solid growth in 2025 despite global headwinds: provisional figures from the Ghana Statistical Service indicate the economy expanded by 5.5% year‑on‑year in the third quarter of 2025, driven largely by strong performances in agriculture and services, although industrial activity remained subdued.
Meanwhile, broader international estimates suggest real GDP growth of around 4.0% for 2025, even as inflation pressures persist above the central bank’s target and structural challenges in the labour market continue to weigh on overall employment prospects
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