Ignatius Baffour Awuah
The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, has disclosed that the coronavirus pandemic impacted Ghana’s employed population of over 11.2 millions workers.
He said the impact of coronavirus on the working class was recorded in the first three months of the outbreak (March-June, 2020).
“The global pandemic impacted Ghana’s employed population of over 11.2 million workers (GLSS 7, 2019) in the first three (3) months of the outbreak (March-June, 2020),” he told the media at the Information Ministry’s Meet The Pres Series on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 in Accra.
According to him, the major effects on the labour market were: pay cuts and job losses.
The Minister disclosed that some 2,849 jobs, representing 24% of job losses, have been restored after the easing of coronavirus restrictions.
He stated that the above figure was arrived at after an interview of about 40,040 individuals in a survey regarding 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 coronavirus restrictions was eased, indicating that this is based on data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) .
National Employment Scheme
The Minister disclosed to the media that a National Employment Scheme will be implemented to deal with employment issues in the future, should crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic strike Ghana or the world.
By Melvin Tarlue