Economist Professor William Baah-Boateng has stated that Ghana's past and present governments have not shown enough commitment to addressing the unemployment menace facing the country.

According to him, successive governments would have to focus on addressing the canker since it could pose a threat to the economy in future.

Speaking on PM EXPRESS BUSINESS EDITION, he explained that over the years the ineffectiveness and politicisation of unemployment have been the bane to various programmes meant to address the problem.

"I think as a country, we have never looked at this situation as a big issue. We always tackle it with firefighting approach. We started having problems from 1984 as far as the social economy is concerned"

"We start one thing and we don't end it then we start another one. Over the years, there have been so many programmes that have never implemented properly. We have had the National Youth Employment and others that didn't work out”, he stressed.

Professor Baah-Boateng called for more support for the private sector.

He highlighted the need for the government to reduce taxes and create a more conducive environment for them.

"The private sector is supposed to address this problem, but in our case they are burdened with taxes and other economic challenges."

"In other countries, the private sector plays a key role in this but in our part of the world they cannot absolve all these graduates because of the challenges", he added.

The average rate of unemployment in the country rose to 14.7% in the first three quarters of 2023.

The number of unemployed youth aged between 15 and 35 increased from about 1.2 million to over 1.3 million during the same period with the rate among females consistently higher than males.