Goldstar Air, the Wings of Ghana is working towards solving unemployment in Ghana and beyond. The United States and Ghanaian registered company Goldstar Air is awaiting a safety certificate from the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority after aircraft inspection to start scheduled and non-scheduled flights to West Africa and Intercontinental and to provide employment opportunities for the youth in the country.
The airline’s 24-hour service will address Ghana’s unemployment and underemployment through various innovative initiatives to create over one million direct and indirect job opportunities in all sectors of the economy. This solution lies in the short-term, medium-term, and long-term.
The unemployment rate in Ghana has risen to 14.7 percent, according to data from the Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey Quarter Three Bulletin by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
Goldstar Air, Ghana’s economic tool, has the potential to unlock the current financial crisis and reduce the country’s high inflationary rate. The airline is well-positioned to create over one million sustainable job opportunities for the teeming Ghanaian youth.
Goldstar Air 24/7/365 direct jobs which the youth of the country will benefit are Pilots, Ground service crew, Service person in maintenance, Cabin crew, Counter agents, Travel agents, Tour operators, Country managers, Station managers, Accountants, Flight dispatchers, Drivers, Marketing personnel, Cleaners, IT managers, Air marshals, Cargo agents, Catering services, Fuel suppliers, etc.
The 2023 Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES) report has revealed that over Two (2) million young people in Ghana, aged 15-35, are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). With the report, released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), females account for the majority, with 1.2 million compared to 715,691 males.
The population of Ghana is projected to increase by 20 million from now to 2050, bringing the number of persons in the country to about 53 million in the next 26 years. Over the period, 15 of the 16 regions would have a population of more than one million except Oti Region which would have a population of less than one million.
Ghana, which has long been West Africa’s second-biggest economy, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has slipped a step down to third in the region with 75 billion dollars, behind Cote D’Ivoire with 87 billion dollars and Nigeria 253 billion dollars.
Undoubtedly, the country’s youth remains a critical resource in 21st-century nation-building and development, and the airline is creating worth for the youth in Ghana.
Underemployment measures the number of people in an economy who are unwillingly working in low-skill and low-paying jobs or only part-time because they cannot get full-time jobs that use their skills.
Underemployment and unemployment are counted in United States government reports to provide a truer picture of the health of the job market.
Notably, underemployment differs from unemployment. The former denotes a situation where individuals work below full capability, while the latter refers to being completely out of work. People who work in jobs that do not reflect their education level, actual training, or financial needs are said to be underemployed. In this case, the job fails to utilize the worker’s skills, education level, and availability.
Underemployment has turned most Ghanaian workers to borrowing to cover their monthly salaries. For some workers in the country, monthly salaries or take-home pay cannot even cover their transportation, and that makes workers unfaithful at their workplaces.
Most underemployed people live below the poverty line. Casual and seasonal employees who work below their full capacity also fall into this category. In other words, underemployed people are overqualified for their current jobs.
This is more pertinent as the rising unemployment and underemployment in Ghana is due to a disconnect between education and the skills required in the labor market. Moreover, the weakness in the educational system and what the industry needs has prolonged unemployment duration in Ghana. The aviation industry alone can be the catalyst to give sustainable job opportunities to the youth.
According to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldstar Air Eric Bannerman, unemployment is a challenge among all age groups, and its impact is particularly severe among the youth. Young people tend to have higher rates of unemployment and to engage in vulnerable and informal employment. The difficulties in securing adequately paid and productive jobs after school tend to increase the vulnerability of young people and can make them susceptible to social vices as well as a source of conflicts and civil disorders, therefore the airline will contribute significantly to addressing Ghana’s youth unemployment while promoting economic growth and development.
Goldstar Air with its 24-hour service is projecting a fleet of more than one hundred (100) modern aircraft to a network of more than ninety (90) key business and leisure destinations, which will be a massive investment and game changer for sustainable economic development in the country.
In 2022, travel and tourism contributed 168 billion U.S. dollars to Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This was a 40.9 percent increase from the year before. Despite the growth, the value added to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) remained below that recorded in 2019, some 186 billion U.S. dollars.
In 2023, travel and tourism’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product in Africa was forecast to reach around 183 billion dollars. Africa stands out as the continent with the fastest tourism growth in 2023, with international tourism arrival numbers at 96% in 2019 levels, according to UN Tourism, the highest recovery percentage in the world. This translated into total international tourist movements reaching 66.4 million.
Commercial aviation is a valuable contributor to global economic prosperity and provides the only rapid worldwide transportation network, which makes it essential for global business. It generates economic growth, creates jobs, and facilitates international trade and tourism.
Commercial aviation drives 5% of the United States GDP, the equivalent of $1.37 trillion in 2023. Every day, United States Airlines operates more than 26,000 flights carrying 2.6 million passengers to and from nearly 80 countries and 61,000 tons of cargo to and from more than 220 countries.
As part of Goldstar Air solving the unemployment and underemployment in Ghana, the airline has signed a strategic mortgage agreement deal with two companies to provide Goldstar Air employees’ home ownership, as part of the benefits the airline is offering to employees and will create a more equitable company where every employee will live in dignity and security and can own their dream houses right after school and well-paying jobs.
The airline’s strategic mortgage agreement will allow Goldstar Air to assist employees willing to own their choice of houses by providing the necessary assets to enable them to acquire their real estate properties and take steps to facilitate the payment of monthly installments for the price of properties through deduction from the salaries of employees.
This benefit will uniquely help them finish the payment in time to have peace of mind and to consider other lifetime needs. Younger generations who may need help saving for a home in today’s market, have the answers with Goldstar Air.
The employees of Goldstar Air will avoid the down payment associated with the mortgage and rather have monthly income to offset this home ownership. A matching contribution and three months’ salary savings for each junior staff will also enable them to purchase imported used cars of their choice and make their movement to and from work easier to maintain high-level operations and deliver good services.
Mr. Bannerman emphasized that Goldstar Air’s 24-hour service will also be initiating a biweekly (2 weeks) employee pay structure in Ghana, which will align with other destinations’ salary structure to avoid employment discrimination and be the first of its kind in the aviation sector in the country.
The airline will be in partnership with travel and tour agencies across the land, by providing them with our ticket sales platform, including information on our ticketing and tour packages. More than 90 percent of the travel agencies in Ghana do not have an international billing or distribution system because of the fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) bank guarantee, so Goldstar Air will introduce a billing or distribution system that will accept any deposit amount agents prefer to make to issue tickets against and this will come as a relief to them. The airline will also offer Ghana tour operators competitive air tickets to their clients, ensuring customer satisfaction always.
As part of Goldstar Air’s initiative to build the agencies for them to provide employment and also to avoid the fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) bank guarantee, the airline has pledged to offer some seed money to travel agencies that have registered with Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) for over a year and that the agencies must be willing to apply for Goldstar Air’s distribution system or local billing system and pay the same amount or more to sell our tickets and travel agencies will earn reasonable commissions.
Goldstar Air has tremendous power to improve the standard of living for many in Ghana and across the globe, with our over one million job opportunities. The airline has set a standard operational processes in place, which is essential for our business and will help the company ensure necessary work gets done efficiently and effectively, as our defined process blueprint will describe the preferred way of executing our business activity and by doing so, it will give guidance to the people doing the work, leaves less room for error and creates a proven recipe for achieving the desired outcome time and over again.
The airline will make a significant contribution to addressing Ghana’s unemployment and underemployment situation, as the airline is determined to create more job opportunities in the courier services. All the Two hundred and seventy-five (275) constituencies in the sixteen (16) regions in Ghana will benefit enormously from the courier services.
The high and increasing incidence of street hawking and the migration of Ghanaian youths across the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean, despite the risks, are symptoms of labor market challenges and also reflect a sense of hopelessness.
The youth constitute a potential resource for growth and development if they are gainfully and productively engaged. But they can also be a source of civil conflict and social tension if this untapped resource is poorly managed. Indeed, disaffected youth without education, jobs, or the prospect of a meaningful future may fuel future instability, migration, radicalization, and violent conflict.
The youth face specific challenges in accessing labor market opportunities, which has the effect of lowering their chances of finding decent jobs. Indeed, the lack of experience of young people in the labor market poses specific barriers to securing productive and better-paying jobs. Additionally, they also stand the highest chance of losing their jobs in times of economic downturn. Underutilizing the skills of young people not only exposes the youth to social exclusion but also has a triggering effect on intergenerational poverty. It is for these reasons that youth unemployment ranks high on Goldstar Air’s development agenda.
A new United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study that analyzed the drivers of vulnerability to violent extremism and radicalization in the five Northern Regions of Ghana revealed youth unemployment as the most common driver.
The report titled ‘Vulnerability Assessment on the Threats of Violent Extremism and Radicalization in Northern Regions of Ghana’, calls for targeted interventions to address the persisting socio-economic challenges and development gap that has generated a sense of exclusion, marginalization, and anger among the largely unemployed youth. According to the Ghana Statistical Service, the national youth unemployment rate for young adults of 15-24 years, is about 32.8 percent. In this age category, the average unemployment rates are much higher in some of the northern regions, with the Upper East region having 39 percent, the Savannah region at 38.2 percent, and the North East, at 34.7 percent.
Goldstar Air Maintenance Repair Overhaul, Cargo Village, Aviation Training school, and unique Aviation Catering Services in Tamale and 24-hour operations will provide and help build aviation professionals’ capability and capacity, ensuring they can thrive in a rapidly changing industry. The airline will give scholarships to the less privileged in Northern Ghana through On-the-job training so they can be part of future aviation professionals.
The airline will offer a full range of high-quality FAA and EASA-approved aviation training courseware and reference products that will be trusted around the globe for decades. The school will take an application-oriented approach to training, which incorporates real-world scenarios and examples, so people will discover the why and how of aeronautical concepts and not just the facts needed to pass a test.
One may obtain the training and experience necessary to become an FAA-certificated Airframe and or Powerplant Mechanic via two means. The first is Academy training through an FAA-certificated Aviation Maintenance Technician School (AMTS) and the second is On-the-job training (OJT) that provides practical experience with the procedures, practices, materials, tools, machine tools, and equipment generally used in constructing, maintaining, or altering airframes or powerplants, appropriate to the rating sought.
Once you meet the On-the-job experience requirements, there are commercially available Airframe and Powerplant refresher courses and Airframe and Powerplant prep courses that will help prepare you to pass the airman knowledge written, oral, and practical tests.
Usually, On-the-job training is the most inexpensive method for gaining the required experience. You will need to document consistently your OJT (On-the-job training) activities. FAA recommends you record your experience on an Aviation Maintenance Technician (AMT) log. In your log, ensure you include the Maintenance task performed, Time spent on each task, and Validation by a certificated Airframe and or Powerplant Technician.
Ho Industrial Zone viability will be an economic generator for the Volta Region and Ghana. Hajj flights to and from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will open more doors to the Volta region and Wa airport in the Upper West region, as connecting rural and smaller communities to global commerce, helps businesses expand, and attracts new companies, to the area.
Tamale will serve as a pivotal hub and plans are underway to operate international passenger flights to and from the Sahel region and Hajj flights to and from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Goldstar Air will initially operate flights from Kumasi to Rome, Madrid, Hamburg, London, Dusseldorf, and Milan and Hajj flights to and from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Also, flights from Accra shall include destinations such as Washington, Dubai, Lagos, Toronto, Monrovia, Conakry, Abidjan, Guangzhou, Dakar, Banjul, Rhode Island, London, and Freetown and pending cities such as Miami-Florida, Atlanta-Georgia, Chicago-Illinois, Glasgow-Scotland, Houston-Texas and many more.
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