Yamoussoukroruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Government & the Senate
Sénat de Côte d'Ivoire, Chambre Nationale des Rois et Chefs Traditionnels, District Autonome
The 99-member upper house was installed here in 2018, sat inside the Houphouët-Boigny Foundation from 2019, and moved into its own 8,000 m² building in December 2019. That, plus the chamber of traditional rulers, is what has actually relocated.
Higher education & engineering research
INP-HB (ESA, ESI, ESTP, ESMG, ESCPE, ESCAE, ESAS), Lycée scientifique
The country's flagship engineering school is here rather than in Abidjan — eleven schools, 6,000+ students, 8% of them from fifteen other African countries, on a 1,000-hectare campus.
Cashew processing
CITA, SG Agro, Afcott Cashew (Kewalram Chanrai)
The real industrial employer. The state's cashew innovation centre opened in 2020 at 6,000 t a year, SG Agro runs 24,000 t on the industrial zone, and Afcott's plant at Loukoukro employs around 1,250 people, roughly 80% of them women.
Agriculture
Cocoa and coffee cooperatives, yam and plantain growers, Centre Horticole Moyé
About half the region works in agriculture: 4,000 coffee operators, 5,000 cocoa operators, and 133,000 tonnes of yam a year, which is the volume staple of Baoulé country.
Energy
CIE, CI-Énergies, Barrage de Kossou, Barrage de Taabo
Kossou's 174 MW on the Bandama, forty kilometres away, has anchored the regional grid since 1972; Taabo adds another 210 MW downstream.
Hospitality & pilgrimage
Hôtel Président, Président Golf Club, Basilique Notre-Dame de la Paix
The monuments are an economy: a 285-room five-star hotel on twelve hectares, an eighteen-hole championship course, and a basilica that draws pilgrimage traffic and eighty-odd small neighbourhood hotels around it.
Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.