The future of jobs and skills in Sub Saharan Africa is not that bright

The World Economic Forum’s Human Capital Index finds that Sub-Saharan Africa currently only captures 55% of its human capital potential, compared to a global average of 65%. With more than 60% of its population under the age of 25, Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s youngest region. By 2030, the continent’s working-age population is set to increase by two-thirds, from 370 million adults in 2010 to over 600 million in 2030.

The share of this population with at least a secondary education is set to increase from 36% in 2010 to 52% in 2030. As 15 to 20 million increasingly well-educated young people are expected to join the African workforce every year for the next three decades, delivering the ecosystem for quality jobs – and future skills to match – will be imperative for fully leveraging the continent’s demographic dividend.

While it is predicted that 41% of all work activities in South Africa are susceptible to automation, as are 44% in Ethiopia, 46% in Nigeria and 52% in Kenya; this is likely moderated by comparatively low labour costs and offset by new job creation. Despite this longer window of opportunity, the region’s capacity to adapt to further job disruption is a concern, although there are important nuances at the country level.

Employers across the region already identify inadequately skilled workforces as a major constraint to their businesses, including 41% of all firms in Tanzania, 30% in Kenya, 9% in South Africa and 6% in Nigeria. This pattern may get worse in the future. In South Africa alone, 39% of core skills required across occupations will be wholly different by 2020.

Often this skills instability stems from the fact that many jobs in the region are becoming more intense in their use of digital technologies. Average ICT intensity of jobs in South Africa increased by 26% over the last decade, while 6.7% of all formal sector employment in Ghana and 18.4% of all formal sector employment in Kenya occurs in occupations with high ICT intensity.

Currently trending professions on the continent include the creative industries, food technologists, 3D designers, data centre workers and care, education and health workers, according to our analysis in partnership with LinkedIn.

In the longer term, there is strong job growth potential in hard and soft infrastructure, green jobs, the ICT sector and through new work formats.

The greatest long-term benefits of ICT-intensive jobs in the region are likely to be not in the lower-skilled delivery of digital products or services but in digital design, creation, and engineering. To build a pipeline of future skills.

Africa’s educators should design future-ready curricula that encourage critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence as well as accelerate the acquisition of digital and STEM skills to match the way people will work and collaborate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

*This article is derived from the findings of the World Economic Forum report on Skills gaps.