Recent Info

Summary

Analyses of the labor market in Africa reveal a number of paradoxes. First, despite sustained GDP growth rates (around 5% and above, and over more than a decade, in many countries), the capacity of African economies to generate decent jobs has remained surprisingly limited. Secondly, the notion of unemployment rate, often used to account for the performance of the labor market, is of a very limited scope due to the prevalence of underemployment and vulnerable employment, which both confine most employees in precarious conditions often similar to those of the unemployed (Mbaye, Gueye, 2018a). Finally, while overall African population, and in particular, the working age population have exponentially increased in recent years, available formal jobs have become increasingly scarcer.
The obstacles to the creation of decent jobs in Africa arise mainly from the difficulties to develop the formal private sector, constrained by a difficult business environment. In this presentation, we present facts and figures about the current challenges facing the African job market and policy recommendations to address them.

instructor