Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges, Constraints and Opportunities

Abstract

African demographics, economic structure, politics and globalisation trends combine into a perfect storm for Africa's policy makers. The large cohort of youth entering Africa's labour force is the best educated one the continent has seen, and Africa is witnessing its best growth performance in decades; yet jobs remain elusive in the formal wage sector. This is largely because African economies have hitherto failed to transform structurally from low productivity agriculture to higher productivity non-agricultural sectors and this, taken together with the high fertility and low infant mortality, has resulted in the structure of employment not changing much. Although many refer to the youth employment problem as the ‘youth unemployment problem’ in actual fact, (measured) unemployment in low-income sub-Saharan Africa (3%) and even in middle-income countries outside of Southern Africa, unemployment is not high as it is considered a ‘luxury’. In the absence of formal wage jobs, youth have found innovative ways to express and exploit their talents and capabilities in the agriculture and household enterprises (informal sector). Given the large numbers of youth entering the labour market each year, and the weak structural transformation of most African economies, the informal sector will remain a major employer of youth, particularly the less skilled and less educated, for decades to come. There is therefore a need for a shift in policy thinking across Africa. It is imperative that policy makers make concerted efforts to raise productivity (and thus earnings) in the informal sector, rather than continue to focus exclusively on the formal wage sector. In this regard, policy makers need to learn from, and work with the youth to enable scalability of certain youth initiatives.