MSMEs creates about 80% employment in Ghana, says NBSSI

A research conducted by McKenzie and the National Board for Small-Scale Industries (NBSSI) has revealed that Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) is the largest employer in the country.

The Head of SME Banking at Ecobank Ghana, Kingsley Adofo-Addo who disclosed this recently said about 80% of employment in the country is created by the MSME sector.

“In terms of employment creation, especially across Accra, the average is looking at about 47 to 50% in terms of employment creation and surprising relative to Ghana, 80% of employment is created by the SME sector.

“And if we look at it on the sub-sectoral basis, the Micro Sub-sector contributes 30%, the small, 20 and the medium 47% and again all together, they account for 8.3 million of employment populace in Ghana,” he said.

He was speaking at a webinar organised by Ecobank Ghana Limited where he further disclosed that over 2 million businesses are within the MSME sector.

“It is evident that MSMEs continue to play a critical role by providing critical goods and services, creating jobs, helping to reduce poverty and providing economic growth.

“Currently in Ghana, it is established that 2.1 million businesses are within the MSME sector, which account for 90% of businesses in the country,” he said.

He added that 81% of all MSMEs in Ghana are within the micro-enterprises segment/ sub-sector which employs between 1 to 10 people.

However, he said the economic impact of Covid-19 has been disproportionately felt by the MSMEs [on both the supply and demand side], therefore, creating some inconvenience for the sector.

According to him, businesses are not able to function as they used to pre-Covid era and this has affected employment in the sector as well.

Nonetheless, he called for critical measures to be put in place to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the MSMEs sector.

“It is further critical for all resources to be hemmed together to deliver value to this sector to ensure that they – being the drivers of the economic recovery of Ghana – are equally supported.