Approximately 12,000 jobs have been lost through the effect of the coronavirus disease on the operations of enterprises in Ghana, a survey commissioned by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relation has shown.
According to the survey, which covered 878 formal private sector establishments, the figure –11,657 – represents 31.5% of the total jobs created by targeted establishments for the survey.
The survey was carried out to give the government an understanding of the state of coronavirus-induced job losses and to fashion programmes to mitigate the plight of people who have been affected.
Speaking at the 12th National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) forum on the theme “The Future of Work in Post-COVID-19 Ghana”, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, said: “Some employees had to cope with job losses and pay cuts for their enterprises to cope with the disruption in the supply chain caused by the pandemic.
“We have observed that while pay cuts were rampant in large and medium-scale establishments, workers in micro and small enterprises suffered most of the job losses.”
Informal sector
He also said: “In terms of pay cuts, large and medium-scale establishments had to adopt pay cut strategies to keep some workers on their payroll. Generally, the 878 non-household establishments surveyed recorded 31.5% job losses.
“In terms of pay cuts, 40% of the workers interviewed suffered between less than 10% and more than 50% pay cuts to keep their jobs.”
The survey paid little attention to workers in the informal sector, which employs over 80% of the country’s workforce. Baffour Awauh said the figure could have been above what was recorded if the informal sector had been included.
“It is important to note that the picture would have been more devastating if the survey was extended to workers in the informal sector, where 80% of the workforce is engaged,” he said. “We concentrated mainly on the formal private sector even though there was some bit of informal sector addition.
“We took away public sector institutions because the public sector is mainly paid by the government and during the period government tried to pay all of them. If we had included them the percentages would have come down,” the minister said.
Unemployment insurance and reskilling
It is believed that the survey will be factored into the development of the national unemployment insurance scheme that the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, announced during his presentation of the Mid-Year Budget Review to Parliament.
“Government will inject liquidity into the system to ease cash flow difficulties of businesses and protect workers by honouring obligations to contractors and suppliers on time,” Ofori-Atta said, adding that the government would collaborate with social partners through the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to establish a national unemployment insurance scheme.
“The scheme will provide temporary income support to workers that are laid off and also provide them qirh access to retraining to help them take advantage of employment opportunities in new fields,” Ofori-Atta said.
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