Ghana at Work 2017
We are excited to release the newest edition of our report on salary levels in Ghana: “Ghana At Work: Trends in Salary Levels for Young Professionals 2017”. This year, we continued to track the salary level trends for four main sectors: business & commerce, engineering, information technology, and sciences.
Data collection efforts began in January 2017 and ran throughout the spring. We sent out a salary survey to employers in Ghana – ranging from accounting firms, software companies, as well as engineering consultancies and NGOs. With the generated data, we were able to derive several insights, which we will highlight in this blog.
Overall salary levels increased with inflation rates: Like the previous years, we found that salary levels were protected against inflation rates in Ghana. Since our first salary report in July 2014 until March 2017, inflation has grown by 49%. As seen in the graph below, we found that salaries grew 20.6% faster than the inflation growth. The increase is influenced by growth in the information technology sectors, and to a lesser extent, the science, engineering, and business sectors.
Business graduates show most salary growth in 2017, but science and tech graduates are still highest earners: In the past several years, we have consistently found that IT, science, and engineering jobs pay higher salaries than business jobs. This year was no different – we found that overall, business degrees earn less money than its counterparts. However, we found that overall growth rates for business salaries between July 2016 and March 2017 outpaced the other sectors. As a result, we continue to be optimistic about supporting a well-diversified group of students.
Brighter Investment investors are shielded against exchange rate fluctuations: Given our base of international investors, we closely monitor the how exchange rates affect the value of their investments. Despite fluctuations in the value of global currencies, our analysis shows that investors in Brighter Investment were protected against exchange rate changes. Between 2016-2017, the Ghanaian cedi lost 13% of its value when exchanged into US dollars. However, salary levels offset this decline – meaning salary growth outpaced the drop in the value of the Ghanaian cedi.
Since launching our product in 2014, we have invested in 74 high potential students. This year, we will be breaking the 100-student mark, as we continue to grow quickly. If you are interested in getting involved, we are looking for partners to mentor our senior students, as well as partners for our data and research operations. Please email Bruno Lam at b.lam@brighterinvestment.com if you are interested.