Labour market lacks decent jobs

Daily Graphic (pg. 54), Wed, May 5/10

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
Ghana’s labour market is saddled with a huge decent job deficit, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said.
According to the Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, Dr. Yaw Baah, over six million people working in the country did not have regular pays, benefits, contracts, rights or job security in their line of work.
Dr. Baah who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic said only one million working Ghanaians have decent jobs in the country out of a working population of about 11 million.
This year’s celebration is on the theme “Consolidating workers solidarity and legacy of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah”.
Dr Baah who explained that the statistics were indicative figures said the one million people in decent jobs comprised of 500,000 in the public sector with the others found in the private sector of the economy.
According to him about 70 per cent of the working population were self employed with majority of them seeking decent jobs because they earned less than the minimum wage and did not have job security.
Dr Baah therefore, said for any government to succeed, it had to make it a priority to create decent job avenues where workers would have job securities and benefits even when they retire after 60 years.
He said it was sad to note that previous governments did not make labour statistics a priority saying that people should be able to measure the performance of a government by the labour statistic figures that it was able to release monthly through authentic measures.
He said it was only when the government was able to know the number of people who were employed in decent jobs, that it could address the defecit in the job market.
Dr. Baah who wondered how people were able to assess government’s performance without data on employment said “it was easier to gather data on employment than on inflation”.
He said the last job statistics gathered in the country, the National Representative Data, 2006 which was captured in the Ghana Living Standard Survey Five (GLSS V) was yet to be reviewed.
He said for years past things had not changed much in the labour market as demand for more jobs far outweighed supply with over six million people living below the poverty line.
Dr Baah said the theme for this year’s celebration was appropriate because it gave the labour market the opportunity to celebrate Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who he said gave workers the conciousness that they mattered in the country.
He said Dr Nkrumah in an effort to secure the future of workers in the country, ratified 35 of the 47 International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention in the country and also enacted the Industrial Relations Act 1958 and 1965 for workers.