This briefing paper addresses the issue of post-conflict job creation in Sierra Leone by focusing on the post-war interventions for reform that were expected to produce economic opportunities. It provides an overview of the challenges facing the national government and its international partners in generating growth for job creation, and explains the outcome of the post-conflict reforms on employment. The argument is made that the current orthodoxy of liberalisation lacks the credentials to address the issue of unemployment in the local context. The policies for intervention appear to have made little impact on formal job creation for the majority of citizens, yet this was a key objective in the post-war reconstruction. This situation is of concern because building long-term peace and the continued legitimacy of government rest predominantly on the production of tangible dividends for a waiting population; a population which previously experienced economic exclusion of mass proportions and indescribable hardship during the conflict years, and which expected change when peace eventually came.