Invest in tourism to create jobs - Ebo Turkson urges government

Government must invest more in the tourism sector to create the much-needed jobs, Professor Ebo Turkson of the Department of Economics at the University of Ghana has said.

The unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) data show that the unemployment rate in Ghana increased to 4.50 percent in 2020 from 4.10 per cent in 2019.

Given the tourism sector’s potential to generate thousands of jobs from selling artefacts, tour guides, drivers, cooks, hotel workers, laundry workers, bartenders, security, destinations management organisations, confectionary manufacturing and retail, and apparel manufacturing among others, Prof Turkson wants more investment in this labour-intensive sector.

“In my recent research with my colleagues, we came to a conclusion that the agro-processing and the tourism sector are sectors that need government support”, he said at the launch of the Engboxx raffle dubbed “Easter in Dubai”.

“People think it’s the government's duty to do everything, but most countries these days are pushing for private-public partnerships. So we have to also push more,” he added.

He called for more collaboration between the public and private sectors to grow tourism. He commended Engboxx, a software engineering firm, for leveraging technology to promote tourism.