Ghana’s business landscape has expanded dramatically over the past decade, but the overwhelming majority of enterprises remain trapped in the informal sector, according to new data that raises troubling questions about job quality and economic transformation.
Government Statistician Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu disclosed at the launch of the “Ghana in Numbers 2025” publication on Thursday that 92% of the country’s 2.64 million business establishments operate informally, with only 7.7% formally registered. Nine in ten businesses are classified as micro-sized, employing between one and five people.
“Businesses are multiplying faster than the jobs inside them,” Dr. Iddrisu said, capturing the paradox at the heart of Ghana’s economic expansion.
Growth Without Transformation
The Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES-1) shows that business establishments nearly tripled between 2014 and 2024, while the number of people working in them doubled. Yet the structural character of the economy has shifted in the wrong direction: the share of micro businesses has become more pronounced, while medium-sized enterprises—once the largest segment—have dwindled significantly.
Unemployment declined from 14.6% in 2023 to 12.8% in 2025, but more than seven in ten jobs remain informal, according to the report. The figures suggest that while more Ghanaians are earning a livelihood, they are doing so without the protections, tax contributions, or access to credit that formalisation affords.
A Closing Youth Window
The report paints a stark picture of youth employment. About 12 million Ghanaians are aged between 15 and 35, yet nearly one in three young jobseekers aged 15 to 24 cannot find work. Close to 2 million young people are neither working nor in education or training, and more than six in ten of them are young women.
“Ghana’s youth window is open, but it is closing,” Dr. Iddrisu warned. “Our choices on schooling, skills, and jobs in the next 10 years will decide whether it becomes a dividend or a burden.”
The warning carries particular weight as the government prepares to present its 2027 Budget on November 12, with job creation and productivity slated as central priorities . Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Nyarko Ampem, speaking at the same launch, said the budget would focus on moving “from producing job seekers to nurturing innovators, entrepreneurs and job creators.”
Uneven Progress
The report also highlighted contrasting economic trends. Inflation fell dramatically from 54.1% in December 2022 to 5.4% in December 2025, a disinflation path that has been widely praised. But food insecurity rose over the same period, from 37.7% in 2024 to 39.8% in 2025, affecting an estimated 13 million people.
“The progress is real. But it is not shared evenly,” Dr. Iddrisu said.
The publication also captured GH¢38.4 billion in informal cross-border trade with Togo, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire—commercial activity that has largely escaped official trade statistics.
Data as a Tool for Policy
Dr. Iddrisu urged businesses and investors to use the findings to guide decisions, stressing that supporting small enterprises to expand and formalise deserves serious policy attention. The Ghana in Numbers 2025 publication and its accompanying online portal will provide national and district-level statistics to support evidence-based planning.
“For us, producing statistics is no longer the finish line,” he said. “Use is the finish line, or, if you want, impact is the finish line.”
