About 1.9 million youth aged 15 to 35 years in Ghana were not in education, employment, or training (NEET) in the third quarter of 2023.

This was captured in the 2023 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) released by the Ghana Statistical Service.

Females (1.2 million) predominate the youth NEET compared with males (715,691).

One in every three youth NEET resided in the Greater Accra Region, with over half a million (565,360) youth not engaging in any of the three activities.

Four other regions, besides Greater Accra, also recorded youth NEET over 100,000: the Ashanti (352,503), Central (155,171), Eastern (143,601), and Western (137,865) regions. The youth NEET rate for females (21.0%) was six percentage points higher than for males (15.0%).

Greater Accra had the highest NEET rate with a little over a quarter (26.9%) of the population 15 to 35 years not engaged in education, employment, or training. North East Region (19.5%) had the second highest rate with about one in five youth NEET. All regions except Bono East (8.3%) had NEET rates in double figures.

The NEET rate was higher for youth in urban areas (20.6%) than for rural residents (15.0%). When comparing quarter 3, 2023 with the same period in 2022, NEET fell by 5.9 percentage points from 24.1% to 18.2%.

In all, the total number of youth NEET decreased by almost half a million (462,998) over the period. Between the third quarters of 2022 and 2023, the percentage of youth NEET declined in all regions except Greater Accra which experienced a marginal increase of 0.5 percentage points.

Greater Accra was the only region to record increases in youth NEET for both males and females between the third quarter of 2022 and third quarter of  2023. In the other 15 regions, youth NEET declined for both males and females except for Western which recorded a divergent trend by sex: a 5.9 percentage point decrease for males and a 0.3 percentage point increase for females.

The World Youth Skills Day is commemorated annually on July 15 to highlight the importance of providing youth with the relevant skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship. The theme for 2024 is “Youth Skills for Peace and Development”.