Ignatius Baffour Awuah
The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, said about 2,849 jobs which were affected during the heat of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic in Ghana during the first three months of the outbreak (March-June, 2020) had been restored.
Ghana’s employed population runs over 11.2 million.
“The global pandemic impacted Ghana’s employed population of over 11.2 million workers (GLSS 7, 2019) in the first three months of the outbreak (March-June 2020),” he told the media at the Information Ministry’s Meet The Press Series on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, in Accra, adding that the major effects on the labour market were pay cuts and job losses.
Jobs Restored
He said the above figure was arrived at after an interview of about 40,040 individuals in a survey on the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on their jobs.
The minister pointed out that 11,657 of the interviewees revealed that they lost their jobs.
He said there has been a drop of 4.5% in unemployment rate since the coronavirus restrictions was eased, indicating that this was based on data from the Ghana Statistical Service.
National Employment Scheme
The minister said a National Employment Scheme would be implemented to deal with employment issues in future should another pandemic rear its ugly head in Ghana from the rest of the world.
By Melvin Tarlue