The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has urged the government to abandon political slogans and adopt a five-point, data-driven strategy to tackle Ghana’s worsening youth unemployment, saying the current approach is not delivering jobs at scale.
Addressing a statement in Parliament on a matter of urgent national importance, Hon. Oppong Nkrumah backed his recommendations with Ghana Statistical Service figures.
Youth unemployment for 15- 24-year-olds rose from 32% in December 2024 to 32.5% in Q3 2025, while Greater Accra recorded 49.3%.
The former Works and Housing Minister said 1.95 million Ghanaians aged 15-35 are NEET — neither earning nor learning — and that seven out of ten unemployed Ghanaians are under 35.
His first recommendation is transparency and accountability.
“Anchor every job programme to a published delivery scorecard with clear metrics on beneficiaries, cost per job created, time-to-placement, and employment retention,” the MP said.
He argued that without published metrics, programmes like the 24-Hour Economy, One Million Coders, and Adwumawura cannot be assessed.
He noted Adwumawura had only awarded grants to 475 entrepreneurs by March 2026, 11 months after launch, against a target of 10,000 businesses a year.
The second proposal is to separate and properly fund skills development from job creation.
“Training people without creating demand for their skills only manufactures disappointment,” Hon. Oppong Nkrumah warned.
He pointed to the One Million Coders Programme, which attracted 90,000 applications in 48 hours but had its website offline by November 2025 before a relaunch to onboard just 30,000 in the first cohort.
He said supply-side training must be matched with demand-side job creation.
Third, he called for a shift in financing from government borrowing to private capital mobilisation. “Government should focus on de-risking, co-investing, and creating regulatory clarity while private capital drives large-scale job creation,” he stated.
He described sovereign financing as insufficient to absorb nearly 2 million NEET youth and said the state must become a facilitator, not the sole funder.
Fourth, Hon. Oppong Nkrumah said Ghana must make the apprenticeship economy the spine of its youth employment strategy. That means national certification for apprentices, employer co-funding, and clear pathways into formal employment or self-employment.
He said this would formalise the sector where most young Ghanaians already acquire skills, while improving quality and portability of those skills.
His fifth recommendation is institutional: build a credible Labour Market Information System.
“Publish timely district-level data on vacancies, sectoral demand, skills gaps, and graduate absorption to guide policy and budget decisions,” he urged.
He said the El-Wak Stadium tragedy, where six young people died competing for 2,000 GAF slots, reflected the absence of credible job market data and alternatives for youth.
In conclusion, Hon. Oppong Nkrumah said the youth crisis is not a general unemployment problem with a youth dimension, but a youth problem that is getting worse.
“We do not need more slogans or promises that results are in the pipeline. We need a more effective architecture to solve the worsening youth unemployment problem. The GSS data is clear. The time to act is NOW,” he told the House.
By Prosper Kwaku Selassy Agbitor
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