By Michael Foli Jackidy, GNA
Ho (V/R), June 30, GNA – Ghana’s economic growth over the past three decades has been driven largely by increased investment in labour and capital rather than improvements in productivity and efficiency, the country’s maiden Productivity, Employment and Growth Report has noted.
Presenting the findings at the 2026 National Labour Conference in Ho on Saturday, Dr Alhassan Iddrisu, the Government Statistician, said although Ghana had recorded significant economic expansion and poverty reduction since the early 1990s, the country’s long-term development would depend on its ability to become more productive through innovation, technology adoption, industrialisation and improved workforce skills.
He said the landmark report, jointly produced by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), was the first comprehensive national assessment of productivity in Ghana, covering the period from 1991 to 2022.
Dr Iddrisu described the report as a critical evidence base for shaping Ghana’s labour market, employment and economic transformation agenda.
He explained that the report was developed under the ILO’s Productivity Ecosystem for Decent Work framework, making Ghana’s productivity statistics internationally comparable while aligning them with the Government’s Resetting Agenda, the proposed 24-Hour Economy policy and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“For the first time, Ghana can clearly measure how productively the nation works and understand what that means for employment, wages, investment and long-term economic growth,” he said.
Dr Iddrisu described productivity as the efficiency with which an economy transforms labour, machinery, capital and technology into goods and services, stressing that sustained productivity growth was the surest path to higher incomes, improved living standards and poverty reduction.
“When productivity rises, incomes rise, poverty falls and living standards improve. Productivity is therefore not merely an economic indicator; it is the engine of sustainable development and shared prosperity,” he said.
The Government Statistician said the report measured two internationally recognised indicators—Labour Productivity, which measures output per worker, and Multifactor Productivity (MFP), which captures improvements in efficiency arising from technology, innovation, skills and better management.
He said the analysis drew on data from the Ghana Living Standards Surveys, Population and Housing Censuses, Annual Household Income and Expenditure Surveys and National Accounts, covering three broad sectors of the economy over three decades, with detailed analysis of 17 economic sub-sectors between 2013 and 2022.
Dr Iddrisu noted that measuring productivity was critical because it distinguished economic growth driven simply by increased investment from growth generated through genuine efficiency improvements, while helping policymakers identify priority sectors, benchmark Ghana’s competitiveness and assess whether economic growth translated into better jobs and higher incomes.
Presenting the headline findings, he said Ghana’s labour productivity increased by approximately 240 per cent between 1991 and 2019, representing an average annual growth rate of 3.2 per cent.
However, Multifactor Productivity, regarded as the true measure of efficiency, recorded an average annual growth contribution of only about 0.5 percentage point, suggesting that productivity improvements remained relatively weak.
“The evidence shows that Ghana’s growth has been driven mainly by adding more workers, more machines, more buildings and more investment, not by becoming significantly more efficient in using those resources,” he explained.
The report further revealed that industrial output had expanded more than 11-fold since 1991, largely on the back of mining and petroleum activities, but the sector had generated relatively few additional jobs.
Meanwhile, about 80 per cent of Ghana’s workforce remains in the informal economy, where productivity, earnings and job security are generally low.
Providing the broader economic context, Dr Iddrisu said Ghana remained the second-largest economy in West Africa, with Gross Domestic Product estimated at US$114.2 billion in 2025, compared with US$76.4 billion in 2023, while GDP per capita had risen to US$3,385.
He said the country had maintained an average annual economic growth rate of about 4.5 per cent over the past three decades, consistently outperforming the Sub-Saharan African average.
The report acknowledged Ghana’s development achievements, including attaining lower-middle-income status in 2006, reducing poverty from 51.7 per cent in 1991/92 to 23.4 per cent in 2016/17, and significantly lowering working poverty over the same period.
Despite those gains, Dr Iddrisu said the economy continued to grapple with rising inequality, persistent informality, unemployment and underemployment, with women and young people disproportionately affected.
He noted that unemployment stood at 13 per cent, while youth unemployment had reached 34.4 per cent, underscoring the need for stronger job creation in high-productivity sectors.
The report also showed that Ghana’s economic structure had shifted considerably over the past two decades, with agriculture’s share of employment declining from 53 per cent in 2000 to 33 per cent in 2021, while services expanded from 32 per cent to 53 per cent.
Industry, however, remained relatively stagnant at about 15 per cent, reflecting the slow pace of industrial transformation.
Sectoral analysis showed that industry recorded the highest productivity growth, about 1,185 per cent since 1991, although much of the expansion was concentrated in mining and oil extraction and generated comparatively few jobs.
Services posted productivity growth of about 237 per cent, becoming Ghana’s largest economic sector, while agriculture continued to employ a large share of workers despite relatively low productivity.
Dr Iddrisu observed that labour and capital were not moving rapidly enough into high-productivity sectors such as manufacturing, utilities and commercial agriculture.
Instead, many workers leaving agriculture entered low-productivity informal services and construction, slowing Ghana’s structural transformation.
He said the report identified manufacturing, electricity and water supply, transport and storage, and commercial agriculture as the sectors where productivity and employment growth occurred simultaneously, describing them as strategic areas for future investment.
The study also found that wage growth had generally failed to keep pace with productivity improvements.
The widest productivity-pay gaps were recorded in the services sector and among informal workers, particularly those engaged in household agriculture, trade and repair services.
Utilities, finance, construction and professional services demonstrated stronger alignment between productivity gains and workers’ earnings.
“The evidence clearly shows that while Ghana is producing more, many workers are not receiving a fair share of the gains from increased productivity,” Dr Iddrisu said.
He called for coordinated action by Government, employers and organised labour to make productivity the foundation of Ghana’s next phase of economic transformation.
Among the recommendations, he proposed accelerated industrialisation, modernisation of agriculture through mechanisation and agribusiness, structural transformation to move labour into high-productivity sectors, reduction of informality, expanded investment in technical, vocational and digital skills, stronger links between wages and productivity, and continued investment in productivity statistics to guide evidence-based policymaking.
Summarising the report, Dr Iddrisu said Ghana had made remarkable economic progress over the past three decades but cautioned that future growth would become increasingly difficult to sustain unless the country shifted from input-driven expansion to efficiency-led growth.
“Our next chapter of development must be built on working smarter, not simply working harder,” he said.
“This report is not the end of the journey but the beginning. We are not merely counting numbers; we are providing the evidence to illuminate Ghana’s path towards sustainable, inclusive and productivity-led economic growth.”
GNA
Edited by Maxwell Awumah/Benjamin Mensah