5 things you didn’t know about Africa’s economy

1. Africa is booming

Africa has been the second-fastest-growing region in the world over the past 10 years, with average annual growth of 5.1 per cent over the past decade. Poverty is also on the retreat, consumers are begining to direct more than half their income to things other than food and shelter.

2. Africa is poised to have the largest labour force in the world

By 2035, Africa’s labour force will be bigger than that of any individual country in the world, which offers the continent a chance to reap a demographic dividend, using its young and growing workers to boost economic growth.

3. African workers are better educated than ever before

Today 40 per cent of Africans have some secondary or tertiary education. By 2020, it will be nearly half.

4. With a few reforms, massive job growth is within Africa’s reach

The experience of other emerging economies shows that Africa could accelerate its creation of stable jobs dramatically. When they were at a similar stage of development as Africa today, Thailand, South Korea and Brazil generated jobs at double or triple the rate of Africa’s. This would lift millions more Africans out of poverty and vault millions of others into the consuming class. Africa’s most developed economies, such as South Africa, Morocco and Egypt, are on track to create more wage-paying jobs than new entrants to the workforce. Three sectors have a proven capacity to create jobs and can do so in the future: agriculture, manufacturing, and retail and hospitality.

5. Africa can become the world’s bread basket

Africa has about 60 per cent of the world’s unused cropland, providing it with a golden opportunity to simultaneously develop its agricultural sector and reduce unemployment. On current trends, African agriculture is on course to create 8 million wage-paying jobs between now and 2020.

This is an edited version of a piece in Foreign Policy. Susan Lund is a principal at the McKinsey Global Institute, the business and economics research arm of McKinsey & Co. Arend Van Wamelen is a principal in McKinsey’s Johannesburg office