In Summary:
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A supporter of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), Foday N. Massaquoi, claimed that 90% of Liberians are jobless under the current administration.
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However, a review of available labor and employment data from LISGIS, the World Bank, and the International Labour Organization (ILO) found no evidence to support the claim, with current World Bank estimates placing Liberia’s unemployment rate at approximately 2.9% in 2025.
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While many Liberians work in informal or vulnerable forms of employment, international labor standards classify those engaged in any economic activity as employed, making the claim that 90% of Liberians are jobless misleading.
On May 16, a supporter of the Congress for Democratic Change Party, Foday N. Massaquoi, claimed in a Facebook post that 90% of Liberians are jobless under the Boakai-Koung Administration.
Report By: Melvin Flomo | LMEP Fact-checking Grant Fellow
Massaquoi made the claim shortly after Amos Tweh, Managing Director of the LPRC and Unity Party Secretary General, emerged as an Executive Committee Member (EXCOM) of the Liberia Football Association.
In the post, Massaquoi frowned at Mr. Tweh for what he described as a single man taking three jobs in the wake of a “high unemployment” rate in the country.
In statistics, joblessness includes unemployed people, people who are not working or are not actively looking for work. The World Bank defines unemployment as the percentage of the labor force that is without work, available for work, and actively seeking work.
The Claim
Excerpt from Massaquoi’s post reads: “90% of Liberians are jobless under the Boakai-Koung Administration.”
Rating Justification
To verify the claim, we thoroughly searched available labor and employment statistics from credible institutions, including the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), and international labor databases linked to the World Bank and International Labour Organization (ILO).
Our review of the 2022 Liberia Population and Housing Census thematic report on labour and employment found that the census failed to collect adequate data to help ascertain the actual size of the country’s labour force, persons outside the labour force, and indicators like the unemployment rate. This makes it difficult to find the actual unemployment rate of the labor force. According to the report, the activity participation rate of the working-age population increased from 45.7% in 2008 to 55.3% in 2022.
Additionally, a report on Liberia’s Investment Climate by the Bureau of Economics and Business Affairs of the US State Department notes that Liberia’s unemployment rate is 3.9 percent in the formal sector, referencing the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services’ 2016 Household Income and Expenditure Survey report.
Meanwhile, available data from the World Bank places Liberia’s unemployment rate at approximately 2.9% in 2025, modeled from the International Labor Organization estimate.
The last time the ILO conducted a labour survey for Liberia was in 2017, which puts Liberia’s unemployment rate at the time at 5.9%.
At the same time, Global Economy, an independent online data platform that compiles and publishes economic, financial, demographic, governance, and social indicators for countries around the world, places Liberia’s current unemployment rate at 2.9%.
Conclusion
Based on available evidence, the claim by Massaquoi that “90% of Liberians are jobless” under the Boakai administration is misleading.
Current data from the World Bank, the International Labor Organization place Liberia’s current unemployment rate at approximately 2.9%. It is important to note that this figure is often misunderstood. Liberia’s low unemployment rate does not mean that nearly everyone has a stable job.
Rather, many Liberians work in the informal sector, engage in self-employment, subsistence farming, petty trading, or other forms of vulnerable employment. International labor standards count these individuals as employed if they performed some economic activity during the reference period.
Editor’s Note: This story is produced as part of the Liberia Media Empowerment Project (LMEP) implemented by Internews with funding from the European Union. The funder or partner had no say in the production of this fact-check report
