GEA and TUC Issue Joint Call for Productivity and Inclusive Growth in Ghana
The Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Ghana have jointly released a position paper urging government and stakeholders to adopt bold measures to advance productivity, employment, and inclusive growth in Ghana.
The joint statement follows the release of a national report on productivity, employment, and growth by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) with support from the ILO Productivity Ecosystems for Decent Work Project. The report highlighted Ghana’s slow and uneven economic transformation, prompting both social partners to present a unified call for targeted interventions.
In the statement, GEA and TUC identified macroeconomic stability as the foundation for productivity and decent work. The partner cautioned that exchange rate volatility, inflation, and credit constraints undermine long-term business growth and employment sustainability, hence called for a coordinated policy framework that expands domestic production and ensures access to capital for enterprises in Ghana.
The joint paper further emphasized the need for sectoral transformation, noting that Ghana must shift away from reliance on extractive industries towards sectors with higher job creation potential such as manufacturing, agro-processing, health, education, transport, and digital services. The partners proposed deliberate public–private coordination to develop tailored sectoral action plans, supported by industrial clusters, value chain development, targeted financing, and infrastructure investment.
On wage systems, GEA and TUC advocated for aligning wage growth with enterprise and sector-level productivity gains, stressing that sustainability and competitiveness should guide wage determination. It was recommended that a national wage–wage-productivity adjustment model be created and that a performance-based pay systems that reward output, efficiency, and innovation must be adopted and implemented at the enterprise level.
GEA and TUC also underscored the importance of skills development and employment systems, calling for a coordinated Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system anchored on industry needs, scaling up apprenticeships, and promoting digital skills. They further reiterated their support for the implementation of the National Roadmap on the Transition from Informal to Formal Economy, highlighting the need to extend productivity gains to the informal sector where most of Ghana’s workforce is employed.
The joint statement also reaffirmed the role of social dialogue as a cornerstone of productivity and decent work, and urged government, particularly the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), to ensure the regular release of disaggregated productivity data to support evidence-based decision-making, wage negotiations, and investment planning.
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