A first hire should not become a reason to wait

Letter from the table

To the members of the Team Council,

In March, I decided I could no longer keep postponing a first hire. I had reached the point where doing every task myself was making the work less reliable. I could afford a monthly gross wage of GH₵2,400, and I had enough work to justify it. I did not have enough room in the budget to be casual about the extra obligations that came with becoming an employer.

On 9 March 2026, I wrote down the numbers. The wage was GH₵2,400. The employer pension contribution at 13 per cent would add GH₵312 a month. The employee’s 5.5 per cent contribution would be deducted from the gross wage, or GH₵132, and included in the total contribution remitted. That makes GH₵444 in pension contributions in all, of which GH₵312 is my additional cost. I also had to account for PAYE withholding and the work of getting the payroll and registrations right. I am not saying those are unreasonable obligations. I am saying that for a very small employer, each one has to be understood before the first payday.

I tried to make a proper plan rather than rely on guesses. I asked what records I needed to keep, how to register the employee with SSNIT, and how the payroll obligations would fit together. I set aside money for the employer contribution and allowed for the time needed to learn the monthly routine. What I could not do was get one clear, dependable path that answered the whole question in plain language. I had to assemble the picture piece by piece.

On 18 March, I spoke with the person I hoped to hire and said I needed a little more time before confirming a start date. I was embarrassed. The person had made room for the opportunity, and I was asking them to wait while I checked rules that should be understandable before a small employer makes an offer. I did not want to make a promise and then discover I had miscalculated the cost or missed a required step.

That experience is why I support the Team Council’s proposal. Phased employer contributions for a business’s first ten hires, a one-stop payroll registration process, and predictable rules could help people like me make a formal offer with confidence. A new employer should be able to see, before hiring, what the worker will receive, what the employer must pay, which authority receives each item, and when it is due. The answer should not depend on finding several separate explanations and hoping they agree.

But I want the Council to pay attention to an unintended consequence. If relief is attached too narrowly to “the first ten hires,” a careful rule could still make employers think twice about hiring number eleven. Some may delay a necessary hire until they believe they can afford the jump in cost. Others may be tempted to describe a continuing job as a series of short engagements, or to use a contractor where an employee is really needed. I do not say that to accuse small employers. I say it because a policy should be tested against the choices people will face when their margins are tight.

The count should be clear and hard to manipulate. It should explain how replacements, part-time staff, and employees hired at different times are treated, and it should not reward breaking one real job into several arrangements. Any phase-out should be gradual and announced well in advance. An employer should not discover after making a commitment that the next hire triggers a sudden, unpredictable cost increase.

There is another safeguard I consider essential: relief for the employer must not mean a smaller pension contribution credited to the worker. The worker should receive the full contribution due under the rules, on time. If public support or a temporary reduced employer rate is used to make the first hires affordable, the design should say plainly who covers the difference and how the worker’s entitlement is protected. The employee should not carry the risk created by a policy intended to help the employer formalise.

And one-stop registration must mean one clear route, not just one website. A small employer needs a named sequence of steps, a receipt or confirmation at each stage, and a way to correct an error without losing a month or putting an employee’s record in doubt. Simpler administration should join up the process for the employer while preserving the responsibilities of the institutions involved.