The McKinsey report notes:
- Africa has shown impressive growth since 2000, outpaced only by the East Asia region, with the natural resources sector (oil, gas, mining) being the single largest contributor.
- Natural resource sectors make crucial contributions to Africa’s GDP, government revenue and export earnings but they employ less than 1% of Africa’s workforce.
- Africa will add 122 million people to its labour force by 2020 – more than any other region. By 2040 it will have a larger working age population than India or China.
- Economic growth reaches most people through employment income so Africa’s challenge is to ensure that economic growth translates into more stable wage-paying jobs.
- If large numbers of stable jobs can be created Africa could benefit from a demographic dividend at a time when Europe and China have declining working age population. If not, the risks of growing inequality leading and social unrest are clear.
- As countries develop both the share and number of jobs in agriculture typically decline. But countries with rich natural endowments of arable land and favourable climates – like many countries in Africa – can defy this trend. Thailand is an example. It grew the number of stable agricultural jobs from 519,000 in 1960 to almost three million by 2008.
- McKinsey estimates that 14 million stable wage paying jobs could be created in agriculture by 2020, if development of the sector was accelerated.
- Furthermore, of the potential 15 million additional jobs that could be created in the manufacturing sector, a large proportion are likely to be agriculture related. Agriculture today accounts for about half of all manufacturing jobs in Africa.
Posts
