The World Bank has projected that Nigeria, including four other countries, will face nearly half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s job challenges by 2050.
The Bank made the projection in its latest Africa’s Pulse report, where it also forecasts that economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa will grow by 3.8% in 2025, up from 3.5% in 2024, and accelerate to an average of 4.4% in 2026–2027.
However, the pace of job creation remains alarmingly slow, especially in Nigeria, which is expected to account for the largest of the region’s employment challenges over the next 25 years.
“Nearly half of the region’s jobs challenge for 2025 to 2050 is accounted for by five countries—namely, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda,” the report stated. The region’s working-age population is projected to increase by over 620 million during this period, with Nigeria contributing a significant share.
Despite the rebound in growth, the World Bank warns that economic expansion is not translating into meaningful employment gains. “A 1 percentage point increase in growth is associated with only a 0.04 percentage point rise in the share of working-age individuals with wage jobs,” the report noted.
Growth returns, but job creation lags
Sub-Saharan Africa’s recovery from the economic trough of 2023 has been resilient, with improved terms of trade helping to reduce external imbalances and strengthen currencies. Inflation is easing across many countries, allowing central banks to adopt more supportive monetary policies that encourage private consumption and investment.
However, fiscal consolidation driven by high public debt and wide deficits continues to weigh down economic activity. The region’s growth is gradually returning to pre-COVID-19 levels, but the World Bank cautions that global trade policy uncertainty, especially surrounding U.S. tariffs, could dampen investor confidence and external financing.
While reciprocal tariffs announced by the U.S. in August have lowered export rates for most African countries, the broader trade environment remains volatile.
“Growth prospects in the region remain tilted to the downside due to the indirect effects of trade policy uncertainty, weakened global investor appetite, and shrinking supply of external finance,” the report said.
Path forward: Productivity and inclusion
To address the jobs crisis, the World Bank recommends a dual strategy: creating more jobs and improving job quality. “Higher labor income per capita can be decomposed into increases in labor productivity, employment per person, and the share of labor in national income,” the report explained.
Improving job quality will require targeted investments in education, infrastructure, and enterprise development to raise earnings per worker and stimulate inclusive growth.
Without these measures, the region risks falling short of its development potential despite promising macroeconomic indicators.
What you should know
The latest report follows an earlier report titled ‘Child Poverty: Global, Regional and Select National Trends‘, released in September 2025, which revealed that despite global progress in reducing extreme child poverty, Sub-Saharan Africa recorded no improvement in the last decade, with over half of children in the region still living below the poverty line.
- At around 52% in 2024, the extreme child poverty rate in the region remains the same as in 2014.
- According to the report, around 1 in 5 children today are living in extreme poverty. It is estimated that 412 million children under the age of 17 were living in households surviving on less than $3 a day in 2024.
