The Ghana Statistical Service will publish figures on the rate of unemployment in the country, calculated from data collected during the 2010 population census. Head of economic statistics at the Service, Magnus Ebo Duncan, said the official statistics agency will also provide data on the distribution of jobs in the economy. “The tables have been generated, and very soon we will publish the analysis that we have done from the census in a book. In the full analysis that we will bring, you will see the unemployment rate there,” he said. The move will give policymakers some insight into the extent of unemployment in the country, but more detailed characteristics of the problem will be presented after the Service has completed a labour force survey it plans to undertake this year, Mr. Duncan said. “The survey itself will take about 12 weeks. The preparatory work has been done, so now we have to do the training of the interviewers and then we will go to the field.” Chronic joblessness is the biggest weakness of Ghana’s fast-growing economy, economist and Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, has argued. What compounds the problem is that there are no updated data on the jobless rate and the characteristics of the unemployed in the country. But according to Prof. Aryeetey, one gets an inkling of the pervasiveness of the problem from the huge numbers of youth that line the streets “selling things nobody will buy”. Unemployment is also rife among university graduates, he said. According to him, half of graduates who leave the country’s universities do not find a job during the two years after their national service -- and one-fifth are without a job for a third year. The African Development Bank (AfDB) warned recently that while Ghana and most countries in Africa are right to be excited about their recent high growth rates, the paucity of jobs in their economies should temper the celebrations. “The continent is experiencing jobless growth. That is an unacceptable reality on a continent with such an impressive pool of youth, talent and creativity,” said Mthuli Ncube, the AfDB’s chief economist. “Creating productive employment for Africa’s rapidly-growing young population is an immense challenge, but also the key to future prosperity,” authors from the AfDB, the OECD Development Centre and two United Nations organisations wrote in a foreword to the recently-launched African Economic Outlook 2012. The report estimated the unemployment rate among youth aged 15 to 24 in Ghana at 25.6%; twice that of the 25-44 age group and three times that of the 45-64 age group. It said the youth account for 60% of the unemployed in Africa -- numbering about 40 million -- with as much as 22 million of them having given up on finding work. “High growth alone is not sufficient to guarantee productive employment. Youth unemployment is largely a problem of quality in low-income countries and one of quantity in middle-income countries.” Ghana joined the ranks of Africa’s middle-income nations in 2010 after nearly three decades of positive economic growth that helped to lower poverty by raising incomes. In 2011, the economy expanded by 14.4%, with the new oil sector contributing almost 40% of the expansion. Sub-Saharan Africa grew by more than 5% in 2011, repeating a decade-long performance that has seen more people enter the middle-class even as income and wealth inequalities have widened. But the lack of jobs is not exclusive to Africa, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said. In its annual World of Work report published at the end of April, the Geneva-based ILO said weaknesses in the global labour market are becoming ingrained, with high levels of long-term and youth unemployment. The study reported that there are 50 million fewer jobs in the world economy now than before the recession started in 2008. It added that growth is unlikely to be strong enough in the next two years to create jobs for an extra 80 million people who will be looking for work.