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Abstract:
This paper examines the employment and labor market impacts of structural adjustment reforms that had been implemented in the economies of many African countries during the past several decades. As the ultimate success or failure of any economic restructuring must be judged by the extent to which it improves or fails to improve income distribution and standard of economic well-being of the labor force, it is important to have a complete understanding of the full effects of such reforms on such key labor market parameters as employment, productivity, and earnings. Many African countries (ACs) adopted and implemented massive structural economic adjustment reforms during the decades of the 1980s, and well into the early periods of the new millennium. The reforms involved the task of adjusting their economies for greater use of, and reliance on, the free market mechanism in resource allocation and distribution of income and wealth in their societies; and were believed to be necessary as a general recourse for enabling the ACs to achieve greater economic growth. This study finds that greater commitment toward more economic reforms would have significant positive employment impacts in the long run, albeit with some negative dis-employment effects during the immediate short-term periods of the implementation of the structural adjustment programs.
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