Mali created a net total of 65,503 jobs in 2025, the country’s best employment performance in five years, according to the Minister of National Entrepreneurship, Employment, and Vocational Training, Oumou Sall Seck.
Gross job creation reached 69,298 positions over the year, offset by 3,795 job losses, Seck said at a press briefing held Friday at the Prime Minister’s Office in Bamako. The net figure represents an 8% increase from the 60,692 net jobs recorded in 2024.
The public sector accounted for the bulk of the gains, generating 40,566 jobs, or 59% of total gross job creation.
Civil service recruitment, public investment programmes, and government-backed self-employment and youth insertion schemes drove those figures, the minister said.
Private sector hiring totalled 28,732 jobs in 2025, down from 32,292 the previous year. Seck attributed the decline to a fragile business environment marked by investor caution and strain in certain economic sectors.
Job creation was front-loaded: 38,864 net positions were recorded in the first half of 2025, representing 59% of the annual total. The second half produced 26,639 net jobs, reflecting a slower pace of hiring.
The government plans to sustain momentum through reforms aimed at stimulating private investment and improving the business climate. The National Entrepreneurship Strategy and its 2026–2030 Action Plan, recently adopted, form the centrepiece of that agenda, Seck said.
She also called for consolidating self-employment mechanisms and youth labour market insertion programmes as a structural lever for generating what she described as decent employment at scale.
