Why Persistent Youth Unemployment Amidst a Growing Economy in Uganda

Abstract

This brief is extracted from a report by Mbowa et al (2013)1 and illustrates the big fact that benefits of a growing economy are accruing to a relatively small proportion of population because growth in the services and industrial sector is not yielding commensurate jobs for the bulging youthful population. Overtime the structure of Uganda’s economy has changed with services and industry overtaking agriculture in terms of sectorial contribution to GDP. However, despite this change in structure, agriculture still employs the largest proportion of the working force2. This implies that the largest share of the labour force (over 60 percent) contributes less than 25 percent to GDP. In the short to medium term agriculture will remain the major source of employment for the majority of the youth. This call for increasing agriculture productivity along the entire agriculture value chain.