CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

  Background to the Study

Unemployment is a challenge to several countries in the world. Even though unemployment affects advanced economies, its impact on the developing countries, especially those in the sub-Saharan African is more severe. According to Poku-Boansi and Afranie (2011), unemployment rate for Africa stands at 34.2 percent. This means that about one out of every three members of the labour force in Africa does not work. Leahy (2007) indicated that considerable proportion of the unemployed population is below 35 years. This appears to suggest that the youth in Africa are mostly without work and therefore may not contribute meaningfully to socio-economic advancement of their communities.

According to Amoafo (2011) an individual is said to be unemployed if he/she is deprived of opportunity to be part of production process. He explained further that such individuals are always searching for jobs. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2000) described an individual as unemployed if such is within the labour age group of 15 years to 64 years, currently not working but searching for job and ready to work anytime the opportunity arises. Poku-Boansi and Afrane (2011) noted that the ILO‟s definition of unemployment may not reflect the true unemployment situation in Ghana. For instance, because of the informal nature of the Ghanaian economy, many persons who fall within the ILO‟s working age group, who are currently not working, presently not searching but available to work, may be described as being economically inactive and therefore not eligible to be part of the labour force. Reduction in the labour force means unemployment will be low. Thus, even though unemployment may be pretty high, a lower proportion of the labour force is typically documented as being without jobs (Abdek-Rahman, 1994).

In the informal economy, job searching processes such as writing applications and moving from one office to the other are not common. This means that studies in Ghana on unemployment should go beyond ILO‟s definition. This study follows a tenet on legal working age of Ghana Labour Act, 2003 (ACT 651 ) to define an unemployed person as any individual in the working age group of 16 years to 60 years, who is currently not working but able and available to work. The study focuses on the youth and adopts AU‟s (2006) description of youth as individuals between 15 years and 35 years. Therefore, unemployed youth is an individual between 15 years and 35 years who is not working but able and available to work when an opportunity arises.

According to Amankrah (2003), Ghana‟s population is very youthful and represents approximately 22.6 percent of the economically dynamic population. However, most of them are without work, Amankrah (2003). The Ghana Population and Housing Census (PHC, 2010) indicates 42.7 percent of the unemployed inhabitants were aged 15-24 years, 46.2 percent aged 25-44 years, and 9.9 percent aged 45-64 years with only 1.3 percent being aged 65 years and older. The norm however is that, as the individual grows, the probability of being employed tend to increase. Both the data sets of the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GL SS 6) and the 2010 Ghana Population and Housing Census indicate that youth unemployment is high in urban communities.

Even though youth unemployment is a problem, it appears not to have received adequate attention from the world of research. Fundamentally, the unemployed are expected to be subjected to such feelings as unhappiness, shame, frustration and unpleasantness (Goldney 1997; Hammarstrom & Janlert 1997). Youth unemployment has adverse effects both on the youth and the communities they live in. This study investigates the causes of youth unemployment and their effects on the victims and their communities.

  Problem Statement

According to the International Labour Organization Report (2010), significant proportion of the world‟s unemployed youth resides in emerging markets and the situation is not expected to change anytime soon (ILO, 2010). Regrettably, policy has not been too effective to reverse the trend. It is projected that approximately 133 million young individuals (50 per cent of the youth population) in Africa are uninformed about other job avenues. The uniformed individuals may therefore not be in any good position to change their current circumstances.

According to ISSER (2004), around 230,000 individuals (mostly being youth) in Ghana enter the labour market each year with only about 4,600 getting employment from the Government agencies. The rest are expected to be absorbed by the private and the agricultural sectors. While the private sector is not moving fast enough to grip the teeming youthful labour force, the youth are not prepared to enter into agriculture. Even though in the rural communities some of the youth eventually end up in agriculture, the situation is different in the urban communities. The end result is that youth unemployment is much more prevalent in the urban communities, especially Accra and Kumasi. Indeed, the youth in the rural communities who do not like to be engaged in agriculture have been migrating to the urban communities to compound the existing unemployment problem.

According to the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment (2006), Junior Secondary School and Senior Secondary School system could be one of the reasons of high youth unemployment in Ghana. Furthermore, the near collapse of Ghana‟s industrial base owing to unsuccessful divestiture implementation programme in the 1980s has also contributed to the mess. According to Amankrah (2006) the youth unemployment challenge in Ghana is the outcome of the poor macroeconomic management since the late 1950s when Ghana became independent.

Indeed, macroeconomic decisions to create enabling environment for productivity is the best way to encourage the private sector to expand their businesses to absorb the unemployed youth. There have been many discussions on the need to expand vocational and technical education in Ghana. Above all, consumption of locally produced goods will create a good market to boost productivity. Government needs bold policy initiatives to ensure that all these happen. These policy initiatives should however be evidence based, and hence the need for studies such as this.

The unemployed youth hardly contributes to socio-economic development of Ghana. They do not pay taxes. Indeed, it is often discussed in the Ghanaian media about the involvement of the unemployed youth in anti-social activities such as armed robbery and prostitution. It is therefore time that policy gave attention to youth unemployment. In fact, the increasing rate of youth unemployment has become a political issue with opposition political parties usually blaming ruling Government for doing little about the situation. Interestingly, when the opposition political parties have their turn to rule, they completely forget about the youth unemployment problem.

Unfortunately, civil society in Ghana appears too weak to pick the matter to its logical conclusion. This is probably because they do not have empirical evidence to push the issues up. This study therefore makes a modest contribution on the issue from the perspectives of the residents of Ga West Municipality to feed civil society with empirical evidence.

In the last few years, Ga West Municipality has been growing very fast. It is close to the Accra Metropolitan area and therefore as the youth come to Accra and struggle to get jobs, they tend to rush to reside in the Municipality where rent is relatively low. This has made the Municipality one of the worst affected communities in Ghana in terms of youth

unemployment. Understanding of the youth unemployment problems in the Municipality could therefore be replicated to inform national policy.

  Research Objectives

The general objective of the study is to examine the causes and effect of unemployment among the youth in the Ga West Municipality of Greater Accra Region. Specifically, the study seeks to:

          Identify the causes of unemployment among the youth in the Ga West Municipality          Examine the socio-economic consequences of unemployment among the youth in the

Municipality

          Assess the perception of the effects of youth unemployment on community development

  Research Questions

This study seeks to answer the following general and specific questions:

          What are the perceptions of unemployment on the youth of the Ga West Municipality?

          What are the causes of unemployment on the youth of the Ga West Municipality?         

What are the consequences of unemployment problem on the youth?

          Identify the challenges faced by the unemployed youth in this area?

What are the solutions to the problems of unemployment on the youth?