Which sectors are hiring in Cameroon

Where Cameroonians work

According to the EESI 3 survey by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), carried out in 2021, 35.2% of jobs are in the primary sector (farming, livestock, fishing, forestry), 17.5% in industry, 14.6% in trade and 32.7% in other services. The International Labour Organization's (ILO) modelled estimates, published by the World Bank, put agriculture higher for 2025 (41.9%), with 14.6% in industry and 43.5% in services (including trade). The two sources do not measure exactly the same thing, but they agree on the essentials: more than one worker in three works the land.

The breakdown by employer is even more telling. EESI 3 places 52.0% of jobs in non-agricultural informal businesses and 34.6% in informal agriculture; public administration accounts for only 7.1%, public or semi-public companies for 1.2% and formal private companies for 5.1%. In other words, fewer than one job in seven is provided by a “formal” employer. The informal economy is covered in detail on the page devoted to it.

The big employers

No official list of the country's largest employers is published. The headcounts below are those given by the companies or the business press, at the date shown; they are not comparable with each other (some include seasonal workers, others do not).

The CDC, described by Business in Cameroon as the country's second-largest employer after the state, shows how fragile these jobs can be: according to Financial Afrik, the crisis in the Anglophone regions cut its sales by 63.6% and its exports by 66.2%, and by the end of 2022 the company had built up some 35.7 billion CFA in unpaid wages. In 2025, 14,349 hectares of mature plantations still lay idle. The South-West, home to Limbe, Buea, Kumba and Tiko, was once the heartland of salaried agro-industrial work.

The sectors being promoted

• Agro-industry and import substitution: the Integrated Agro-pastoral and Fisheries Import-Substitution Plan (PIISAH) for 2024-2026 aims to cut imports in the sectors concerned by 40%. Its budget of 1,371.5 billion CFA was raised to 1,500 billion in January 2025; it covers rice, maize, soya, palm oil, wheat and local flour, milk, fish and livestock, and later sugar and fertiliser (Ecomatin). No numerical jobs target was found in the sources consulted.
• Energy and major projects: the Nachtigal dam (420 MW, on the Sanaga, 65 km from Yaoundé) was expected to meet 30% of the country's needs, according to EDF; the Kribi port is the other big project that has drawn workers and subcontractors. Construction jobs are temporary by nature.
• Digital: Buea, nicknamed “Silicon Mountain”, has become the cradle of Cameroonian start-ups, around the University of Buea, the country's first English-speaking university. The ActivSpaces incubator was launched there in 2009 and is chaired by Rebecca Enonchong, according to Wikipedia. The internet shutdown imposed on the North-West and South-West from 17 January 2017 hit these firms hard: in February 2017 their founders described a fall in productivity of more than 60% (Camer.be).
• National strategy: the 2020-2030 National Development Strategy (SND30) aims to cut overall underemployment from 77% (2014) to under 50% by 2030, according to the INS. At its mid-term review in August 2026, the national steering committee found that less than half of its objectives (49.6%) had been met, with growth of 3.8% in 2025 against a target of 8.5% (Financial Afrik).

Skills in short supply

Data published by the National Employment and Vocational Training Observatory (ONEFOP) and reported by Ecomatin in May 2021 point to a mismatch between training and demand: technicians, skilled workers and operatives accounted for 45% of job offers, while universities mostly train economics and management students (26%) and very few engineers (5%). In vocational training, about a quarter of trainees were in construction, 3% in tourism and less than 1% in agriculture; the latest official headcount, for 2021-2022, is 59,557 trainees, more than 80% of them in private centres (INS, see the vocational training page). No recent official list of “shortage occupations” could be found online: the ONEFOP website announces a new version for January 2027.

Where to look for a job

• The National Employment Fund (FNE), the public employment service created in 1990, posts vacancies, runs a CV database and manages placement and self-employment schemes (see the page on youth employment).
• The civil service recruits through competitive exams, announced by MINFOPRA and the ministries; this is the route into public employment (see the page on civil service exams).
• Company vacancies also circulate on private job sites and through recruitment agencies. Be wary: fake recruitment drives that ask candidates for money are common, including in the name of state-owned companies.

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