In Vox David Fine and Susan Lund write that jobs are:
... the missing piece needed to complete Africa’s growth jigsaw and ensure future prosperity and stability.More here
Over the past decade, growth has allowed Africa to create about 37 million stable, wage-paying jobs – a 50% increase. Still, nearly two thirds of Africa’s workforce today is struggling to get by in subsistence agriculture or informal self-employment. And the current rate at which the economy is generating wage-paying jobs is simply not fast enough to keep pace with the expansion of Africa’s labour force. So the continent urgently needs to speed up its creation of those stable jobs that underpin incomes, domestic demand, and social stability. The experience of other countries, and a closer look at the growth potential of different sectors within Africa, suggests that the continent can achieve this.
Lessons from other emerging economies
Data over many decades shows that when Thailand, South Korea, and Brazil had a similar level of per capita GDP as African countries today, they were creating stable jobs at double or triple Africa’s current rate. Our analysis suggests that Africa could accelerate job creation, adding up to 72 million stable jobs over the next decade. This would lift millions more out of poverty and create millions of new consumers, injecting a large dose of new dynamism into the region’s economy. Instead of taking Africa half a century to reach East Asian shares of stable employment today, it could take just 20 years. Roughly 60% of those 72 million additional wage-paying jobs could come from just three sectors that have already proven to be significant employment generators on the continent; agriculture, manufacturing, and retail and hospitality.