An Assessment of the Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Employment: The Case of Ghana’s Economy

Abstract

The literature is in respect of the fact that foreign direct investment has been a key aspect of the development strategy of most developing countries. The main objective of the study is to examine the extent FDI influence employment creation in the non-mining sector of Ghana for the period 2000 – 2016 using time series (annual) data conducted with the aid of OLS (Multiple Linear Regression) model, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL-ECM) Bounds Testing Approach and Granger-Causality test in the estimation of level relationship / cointegration and causality (respectively) between the study variables (for robustness checks). The result of this study shows that FDI has a statistically significant and a positive impact on employment growth via jobs creation in Ghana. Again, evidence shows that the study variables are cointegrated and have a long run relationship. Further robust test from Granger-causality shows no causal relationship from FDI to employment growth or from employment growth to FDI (at significance level of 5%). In addition, the study identifies factors such as wage structure, investment freedom and subsectors as important indicators influencing employment in the country. Finally, the study recommends policies to help create enabling political and socio-economic environment for FDI thereby creating more sustainable jobs and tackling the current high rates of unemployment in Ghana.