Ghana’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) is using this year’s International Workers’ Day to push the economic debate beyond what it calls the insufficient gains of macroeconomic stabilisation, arguing that falling inflation and improved fiscal indicators have yet to translate into better lives for working people.
At the 2026 May Day Forum held in Accra, organised on the theme “Pivoting to Growth, Jobs and Sustainable Livelihoods Beyond Macroeconomic Stability,” TUC Secretary-General Joshua Ansah called on government and employers to shift focus from headline economic figures to the material conditions of workers.
Ansah acknowledged that stability indicators had improved but warned that the figures had not yet reached ordinary workers. “Millions of Ghanaians still struggle to make ends meet. The rising cost of living is taking a toll on our people. We need to create jobs and stop focusing only on statistics,” he said.
He stressed that stagnant incomes remained the central concern for working people, calling for wages that reflect present economic conditions. “Incomes are a major concern. We need decent wages, and we demand living wages that reflect our economic realities,” he said.
The TUC’s position draws support from a broader critique of Ghana’s economic structure that has gained traction in recent months. Joe Jackson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dalex Finance, has argued in a series of public lectures that the challenge facing Ghana is not a shortage of exports but a failure to retain the value those exports generate.
Jackson told an audience at the University of Professional Studies, Accra that Ghana posted a trade surplus of $5.1 billion in 2024 but lost nearly $8 billion through service imports, profit repatriation, debt servicing, and capital flight. Ghana exported approximately $11.9 billion worth of gold but retained less than half of that value domestically.
On the question of job creation, Jackson challenged the long-running policy emphasis on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) as the primary driver of growth. He argued that most MSMEs operated informally, faced chronic productivity challenges and struggled to scale. “SME funding in its current form is economic charity, not a growth strategy. We have over 60 different SME initiatives launched in just 10 years, yet productivity remains low, firms remain informal, and many collapse within three years,” he said.
He cautioned that as long as capital, ownership and decision-making remained external, profits would continue to be repatriated, leaving Ghana as a “tenant in its own economy.”
For organised labour, the prescription is consistent with positions it has long held: build domestic productive capacity, deepen local content in key sectors, and ensure that economic growth generates decent, secure employment rather than headline statistics. The TUC has previously called on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to significantly increase investment in Africa’s social protection and employment systems, arguing that the reconnection between jobs, rights and growth must be “rooted in policy action and global solidarity, not rhetoric.”
As Ghana marks May Day on Thursday, 1 May 2026, the conversation is shifting from whether the economy is stabilising to whether it is transforming. With macroeconomic gains beginning to consolidate, organised labour’s message is that the next phase of policy will be judged not by inflation figures or fiscal targets but by the quality and sustainability of the jobs that follow.
