Analysing Dr Bawumia’s Jobs abroad programme

This week, my guest columnist is Mr Kwaku Addai Tardieh, who runs Migration Solutions Ltd, an international recruitment and migrant labour consultancy. 

He addresses Dr Bawumia’s proposed Jobs Abroad Programme. A proposal I found very interesting in the NPP’s manifesto launched in Takoradi on August 17, 2024 is its Jobs Abroad Programme.

It states how a Bawumia government will develop a pool of skills in Ghana and place them in jobs in countries with serious skills shortages. 

Labour imbalances

Many countries, especially developed ones, often face situations where they do not have enough labour or human resources for specific job categories.

For instance, the European Union estimates that it will have a skills shortage of between five to six million from now to 2030, with half that number needed almost immediately.

Same with Japan, Australia, Canada, South Korea and more.

Inversely there are many countries that suffer serious unemployment with a pool of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled citizens chasing non-existent jobs. Countries from both ends of the spectrum go into mutually beneficial agreements.  

Those suffering from labour shortages sign agreements with those countries with youth bulges and high unemployment rates like Ghana. This is done through well-defined Bilateral Labour Agreements (BLAs) signed between them.

A recent survey by the Ghana Statistical Services puts the number of Ghanaian youth between ages 15 to 35 who are totally idle at the third quarter of last year at a whopping 1.9 million. These are people who are “Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET)”.

The previous year put the number of NEET youth at 2.4 million!

Every year, Ghana churns out hundreds of thousands of young people joining the labour market, either as senior high school or tertiary graduates. The majority of these young people go for years without jobs and remain a burden on their parents and guardians.

Skilled workers like trained nurses and midwives stay home for years without a chance to be enrolled in hospitals. The despondency and sense of helplessness is palpable.

As former President Kufuor once rightly put it, youth unemployment is a national security risk.

Solution, benefits

The Jobs Abroad Programme will identify specific job opportunities in specific countries.  Ghana will negotiate and sign BLAs with them, and send Ghanaians under a regulated regime to fill these positions.

Students Work Abroad Agreements to enable Ghanaian tertiary students and others travel abroad to work during their long vacation to gain experience and also make some money are also envisaged.

The most obvious benefit of this programme is an accelerated decrease in unemployment rates. A lot more of the unemployed youth will be able to find themselves in jobs abroad, often with far higher salaries than they would have received at home, within a short time.

Further, Ghana’s economy stands to benefit a lot from such remittances upon a successful rollout of this programme by a Bawumia government.

 For instance, in 2023 alone, Vietnam received $14 billion in remittances from its nationals working abroad. Similar and higher figures have been recorded by India, Bangladesh, The Philippines etc.

Skills transfer is another major benefit especially with Circular Migration, where migrant workers travel for fixed-term contracts and return home. They often come with new skills which ultimately impact the local labour market in several ways, especially if they are able to set up their own businesses and employ others.

Risks, mitigation

As with any labour export policy, there is the danger of exploitation by receiving countries, exploitation of prospective migrant workers during the recruitment processes through the charging of exorbitant and illegal fees, brain drain if the policy is not well structured etc.

Such threats are mitigated or totally eliminated through very well-structured Bilateral Labour Agreements that take migrant workers’ rights and protection seriously. International Conventions like the ILO Convention Numbers 97 and 143, which deal with the protection of Migrant Workers and IOM’s flagship initiative on Ethical Recruitment known as IRIS should be borne in mind when framing such agreements and also when setting up the local structures to deal with Labour Export or Jobs Abroad Programmes. They contain almost every tenet to ensure full migrant workers’ rights protection.

Further, Labour Attaches with responsibility for the welfare of migrant workers in relevant countries can be appointed in the respective diplomatic missions to enable Ghanaian migrant workers have an immediate port of call for redress in case of any labour issues.

Government has licensed Private Employment Agencies with International Recruitment Mandate. As with all Labour Export Policies around the world, these regulated agencies play a huge role in the recruitment process as well as bidding for jobs from companies in countries the exporting country has BLAs with.

These PEAs should be supported and strengthened, and “connection men” and Travel and Tour Companies that meddle in International Recruitment punished to refrain from that illegality.

Of course, it would be naive to assume that this programme is a magic wand on its own, and government must continue to aggressively pursue meaningful policies that will create jobs here at home.

Overall, however, I believe this is one of the best labour initiatives on youth unemployment with immediate impact that has ever been mooted in this country, and I look forward to a fuller engagement with relevant stakeholders.

Kwaku Addai Tardieh,
E-mail: tardieh@gmail.com