New research into employee mental health and wellbeing has found that Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of workers who are unhappy, disengaged, and looking for alternative employment either at home or abroad.
The 2024 State of the Global Workplace Report, compiled by Gallup, asked workers in 36 African countries about working conditions and their wellbeing. Gallup analysed more than 183,000 business units across 53 industries in 90 countries.
It found that 75% of employees in Sub-Saharan Africa intended to leave their work, and some even their countries of residence. This is compared to 52% of workers globally who expressed such intentions.
It also found that the region has the second-highest number of workers who experienced daily loneliness and stress at the workplace.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 26% of employees felt lonely at work daily, second only to South Asia where 29% of workers expressed feelings of loneliness.
The report also found that just 20% of the workforce in the Sub-Saharan region were fully engaged in their jobs, while 63% were disengaged — and 17% were actively disengaged.
While the [Sub-Saharan] region has seen a 1% decline in the number of workers who experienced anger, more employees were found to be stressed daily
— Report
Most of the respondents who said they were engaged with their work were in management roles, while 13% said they were fully engaged in their work.
Sub-Saharan Africa also recorded the second-lowest number of employees who were happy with life. In 2023, just 17% of workers said they were thriving in their personal lives, a 2% decline from 2022.
Up to 74% of participants from the region said they were struggling at work.
“While the region has seen a 1% decline in the number of workers who experienced anger, more employees were found to be stressed daily; 48% of people in the workplace reported feeling stressed, with half the number being female employees. This figure exceeded the global stress levels in employees by 7%,” the report states.
The report found that 41% of workers globally reported being stressed, 21% experienced anger, 22% feelings of sadness, and 20% said they were lonely at work.
Just 23% of workers globally considered themselves fully engaged. About 62% said they were “not engaged” and 15% were “actively disengaged”.
The research indicates that employees struggling at work and in life has direct consequences on an organisation’s productivity. Gallup estimates that low employee engagement costs the global economy $8.9-trillion, or 9% of global GDP.
The research firm said there was little change in global employee engagement levels compared with 2022, while overall employee wellbeing declined. It said while these numbers are not at a record high, the lack of improvement was notable.
Employees in the US and Canada were found to be the most engaged in their jobs. The region also has the highest number of employees thriving in their personal lives. However, the report found that 49% of the workers were the second-highest in terms of experiencing stress daily.
Europe had the highest number of employees who were disengaged — 72% — though the report found more than 60% weren’t looking for new jobs or planning to leave their jobs.
The region also has the second-lowest number of employees who experienced sadness, with only 17% of respondents reporting that they felt sad at work.
South Asia recorded some of the worst figures when it came to experiencing negative feelings in the workplace. At least 56% of workers in South Asia reported being fully engaged in their tasks.
The research shows that in their personal lives, 64% of the participants in this region said they were struggling, while another 20% said they were suffering; 58% of the workers are looking for other jobs.
Meanwhile, Africa’s richest person said the narrow interests of shortsighted political elites in Africa pose a serious threat to the continent’s development.
Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and CEO of Dangote Group, a Nigeria-based multinational with interests in refining, mining, energy, real estate and manufacturing, said: “I think for African development we, from the private sector, and the political leaders have to get together and make everyone understand that developing our continent is much better than everybody holding on to a small area.
“It is better for you to be the president of a prosperous country than to be the president of a poor country. So I think we need to get together because these days [elsewhere in the world] nobody is fighting anybody. But now in Africa, this one is fighting that one. We should get out of it. We should try to pull ourselves and our resources together and make our continent great,” he added.
Dangote was speaking to Business Times on the sidelines of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) annual meeting in the Bahamas.
He said running businesses was difficult enough without the added stumbling blocks presented by governments and regulators, saying they undermine business initiatives that could improve the lives of Africans.
I think for African development we, from the private sector, and the political leaders have to get together and make everyone understand that developing our continent is much better than everybody holding on to a small area
— Aliko Dangote
The challenges faced by his company as it developed a $20bn refinery in Lagos — capable of processing 650,000 barrels of crude oil a day — included regulatory hurdles, environmental lobby groups and lack of access to capital from established international funding institutions.
“We really went through tough times. We didn’t have a clue how big this refinery was going to turn out to be. If we knew what we were going to get into, we wouldn’t have done it at all.”
He said the group experienced “one pothole after the other” once the idea gained traction in 2013. After dealing with a difficult governor in one region, it took him three-and-a-half years to find another site — where the refinery plan was met with community resistance.
From that point, Dangote said, he had to spend billions of dollars to develop the site and eventually had 34-million square metres of land on which to build.
He said Dangote Group had to build a special port to handle the equipment, develop a road and run pipes through the sea to discharge 2-million barrels a day, essentially becoming the engineering, procurement, and construction company of their refinery.
“We took up the challenge and we set up a team of 340 engineers in India and we began the engineering, procurement and construction of the refinery. Every single bolt and nut, we bought. So we did everything, A to Z, and it has never happened in this world.”
The development of the refinery was beneficial to the continent because only two of its 54 countries — Algeria and Libya — aren’t dependent on imported petroleum products. Dangote said he was happy to supply markets such as Africa and the Caribbean with refined oil at a competitive price.
Afreximbank remains the refinery’s largest financier, signing a seven-year $650m loan agreement with Dangote Group.
“I think the people who were sort of sabotaging us, they were less concerned because ... they thought we were going to fail, and I must really thank a lot of our bankers for not panicking.”
Dangote repeated his long-held frustrations with the cumbersome visa regimes of African nations, saying he needs about 35 visas to travel around the continent, while people from Western countries travel through it more easily.
“We are doing something in the private sector and I think we are going to challenge some of our leaders to make sure that we move on this thing about borders, about free movement of people, free movement of goods,” he said.
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