The World Bank has advised Sub-Saharan African countries to urgently create better jobs for more people to meet the needs of growing populations.

According to the World Bank, the region will experience the fastest increase in the working-age population of all regions, with a projected net increase of 740 million people by 2050 over the next three decades.

“In Sub-Saharan Africa, an urgent need arises for creating better jobs for more people to meet the needs of growing populations. Over the next three decades, the region will experience the fastest increase in the working-age population of all regions, with a projected net increase of 740 million people by 2050”.

Between eight million and 11 million youth will enter the labor market across the region every year in the coming decades, yet only about three million new formal wage jobs are currently created each year.

The World Bank said in its October 2023 Africa Pulse Report that bringing the wage-employment ratio up to par with the upper middle-income country average of 36% will require annual wage employment growth of 8.3% in Sub-Saharan Africa, considerably higher than the rate of 5.4% achieved over the past two decades.

Economic growth has not contributed to job creation

It expressed worry that recent economic growth in the region which it said has not contributed to the creation of jobs for more people.

“Gross domestic product (GDP) in Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole grew by a meager 1.4% annually between 1991 and 2019, despite experiencing a growth spurt from 2000 until around 2014 during which annual rates accelerated to 28%. Even during this period of faster growth, the share of working-age individuals with wage jobs increased only from 14 to 16%”.

For each one percentage point increase in growth generated by Sub-Saharan African countries, the proportion of workers with wage jobs increases by 0.04% on average.

This disappointing translation of growth into jobs, the World Bank stated is specific to the region.

However, countries in East Asia produce roughly twice the number of jobs for each 1 percentage point increase in growth.