Africa faces job inequality, decent work deficits, declining youth participation- ILO

The “World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2025” report of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)  has highlighted that the labour market in Sub-Saharan Africa is grappling with wider job inequality, high rates of decent work deficits, and a decline in labour force participation among younger people.

These trends affected the employment landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa the previous year and are likely to continue except reforms are made and there are structural reforms in the labour market in 2025.

Such indicators combined with high rates of decent work deficits, underemployment and rising job inequality send a strong case for labour market reforms.

Wider job inequality: 402 million people remain jobless while 28 percent remain underemployed

After the pandemic, job inequality increased, while 2024 saw 402 million people looking for jobs, as the gap includes 186 million unemployed people, 79 million who lost motivation to work, and 137 million people who were available to work temporarily.

The exercise of promoting employment was put on pause and as a result, there has been stagnation in working on bridging the gap. Although there is a glimmer of hope, the gap is likely to decrease in the next two years.

High rates of decent work deficits  

Although there is an increase in the number of jobs from Sub-Saharan Africa as compared to the rate of unemployment, the vast majority of jobholders find themselves in unproductive, non-decent forms of employment.

The report suggests that the workforce and those who were looking for a job resorted to informal work after formal employment opportunities decreased after COVID-19.

Workers in the informal sector are engaged in agriculture, retail and wholesale which do not guarantee regular payments or any social protection.

Employment between 2023 and 2024 experienced a slight growth of 3 percent and in the subsequent year, the employment-to-population ratio is projected at 65.9 percent.

The unemployment outlook for 2025 shows consistent projections of 5.9 per cent to remain unchanged. Also, the total working average hours every week were fairly consistent, revealing approximately 38 hours per employed person which is only slightly above 2021 figures. However, with the positive outlook, a large percentage of the employed continue to be engaged in activities deemed relatively unproductive, if not decent.

As per the report published in 2023, only 19.1 per cent of the population in Africa had access to at least one form of social security, the lowest among all regions. The Americas, in comparison, posted a figure of 68.2 per cent while the Middle East posted 30 per cent. Asia and the Pacific were reported to have 53.6 per cent coverage.

Decline in labour force participation by the younger demographic

As the case is, low-income countries are seeing their unpaid labour force slim down to a few individuals, while high-income countries are seeing a trend opposite to this, especially with older women.

With that being said, there is still a gross imbalance when looking at the sphere of employment, as the female demographic exceeds the male in terms of employment opportunities available. The male workforce aged 15 to 29 has also seen their share of decline in engagement in work-related activities, many of them are either unemployed or have dropped out of school.

In 2024, NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) rates in low-income countries increased, with young men reaching 15.8 million (20.4 per cent) and young women 28.2 million (37.0 per cent), marking rises of 500,000 and 700,000, respectively, from 2023. Globally, 85.8 million young men (13.1 per cent) and 173.3 million young women (28.2 per cent) were NEET in 2024, up by 1 million and 1.8 million, respectively, from the previous year.