Immediate-past General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) says in order to earn better salary, prospective job-seekers must burn the midnight candle to build their CVs.

Mr Solomon Kotei said considering the high requirements for employment, in terms of experience and qualifications, most workers and their unemployed colleagues are trying to update their CVs to catch up with demands of the job market.

"So go to Accra Workers College, after 5:00pm, you’d find people sitting there learning to do something, and even late.

"If you can’t sacrifice. If you can’t say, look, let me burn the midnight candle a bit to make a better fortune. Because in most of our institutions, the higher your qualification, they match it to your earnings."

He made these comments on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Tuesday. The discussion was centred on the take-home salary of the average Ghanaian and whether it is enough to cater for their expenses in Ghana today.

A distressed caller, who had worked at a bank at Akosombo for 10 years yet earned GH¢740 a month, said he has been struggling to survive with his wife and children on that salary. He noted that most private sector companies want cheap labour, hence do not pay their workers well.

Addressing his concern, Mr Kotei said, "So like the one who said he’s been driving for how many years, and he chose just to be driving and that is all you want to have. And you know the structure of drivers at the place; grade one, grade two, grade three, and you’re on the ceiling, there’s nowhere for you to go again. And you choose to sit in such an employment, I think it’s a choice you have actually made."

He said that Ghanaians are amassing degrees, since degrees are now common.

This, he said is affecting the remunerations that employees are offering to employees.

"Like we know, if the particular profession they’re looking for is very scarce, then they’d decide what to do."