The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has called for urgent and decisive action to address Ghana's worsening youth unemployment crisis, warning that current interventions are failing to keep pace with growing challenges.

Delivering a statement in Parliament on a matter of urgent national importance, Oppong Nkrumah cited data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) showing that youth unemployment among persons aged 15 to 24 increased from 32 percent by the third quarter of 2025.

He noted that the situation is particularly severe in the Greater Accra Region, where youth unemployment reached 49.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2025, meaning nearly one in every two young people in the region is unemployed.

According to the MP, seven out of 10 unemployed Ghanaians are under the age of 35.

He further referenced GSS data indicating that 1.34 million young people aged 15 to 24 are classified as Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).

Applying Ghana's National Youth Policy definition, which extends youth status to age 35, raises the figure to 1.95 million.

"Nearly two million young Ghanaians are neither earning nor learning," the MP told the House.

Oppong Nkrumah stressed that unemployment in Ghana is fundamentally a youth problem and acknowledged that successive governments, including the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, have been unable to fully resolve it.

He questioned the effectiveness of the government's flagship employment initiatives, including the 24-hour Economy policy, the One Million Coders Programme, the Adwumawura Programme, and the pledge to create 250,000 jobs annually. 

While the One Million Coders Programme attracted more than 90,000 applications within 48 hours of its launch, he noted that by November 2025, the programme's website had gone offline before later being relaunched with plans to admit 30,000 participants in its first cohort.

On the Adwumawura Programme, he said the intiative had targeted support for 10,000 businesses annually, but only 475 entrepreneurs had received grants by March 2026, nearly a year after its launch.

The MP also highlighted the desperation among young job seekers, citing the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) recruitment exercise held at El-Wak Stadium in November 2025. More than 21,000 applicants reportedly competed for 2,000 positions, resulting in a stampede that claimed six lives while five others were admitted to intensive care.

"We have a labour market crisis which is getting worse," he said.

To address the challenge, Oppong Nkrumah proposed a five-point strategy focused on accountability, private-sector investment, apprenticeship development and labour market reforms.

He called for all job creation programmes to be tied to publicly available delivery scorecards measuring beneficiaries, cost per job created, time-to-placement and employment retention. 

The MP also urged policymakers to distinguish between skills training and actual job creation, arguing that training programmes without corresponding employment opportunities only create frustration among young people.

He further advocated a shift away from sovereign financing towards private capital mobilisation, with government concentrating on de-risking investments, co-investment arrangements and regulatory reforms that encourage large-scale job creation.

Other recommendations included strengthening the apprenticeship economy through certification and employer support schemes, as well as establishing a credible Labour Market Information System to provide timely district-level data on vacancies, skills gaps and sectoral demand.

In concluding his statement, Oppong Nkrumah said Ghana needed practical and measurable solutions rather than promises.

"The GSS data is clear. The youth unemployment problem is getting worse. The time to act is now," he emphasised.