Panel members at the Graphic Business/Stanbic Bank Breakfast Meeting have called for a re-direction of government’s investments into the real sector of the economy such as agriculture and manufacturing.

This, they assert, will help create the needed jobs to help reduce the country’s unemployment rate.

Data from the Ghana Statistical Service shows that the country's unemployment rate stands at 13.9%.

The Graphic Business/Stanbic Bank Breakfast Meeting was organised on the theme “Tackling Unemployment to Create Wealth: Opportunities for Ghana”.

Speaking at the meeting, Economist and Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Owusu Adu Sarkodie stressed the need to focus on sectors that can employ large portions of the population.

“The labour absorptive sectors which are agriculture and manufacturing are not expanding so much. The agriculture sector and the manufacturing sector that can create more jobs are not growing to keep pace with the extractive sector”.

Dr. Adu Sarkodie stated that in recent times, the extractive sector which contributes only 0.8% employment is the leading contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while agriculture which employs a large number of the population contributes less.

According to him, the output of the agriculture sector has made the the contribution of workers in the sector insignificant.

On the panel, the President of the Private Enterprises Federation (PEF), Nana Osei Bonsu, warned that the constant neglect of the informal economy is the major challenge in employment creation in Ghana.

“The informal sector is made up of about 86% of the workforce in the country. If  we want to create jobs, that is where we must focus”, he said.

On her part, the Managing Consultant of Purple Almond Consulting Services, Florence Hope Wudu appealed to policy makers to help develop the right human resources needed for job creation