The Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffuor-Awuah, has said government is taking steps to minimize unemployment by creating some opportunities particularly for the youth, because of the job losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Mr Baffour-Awuah, government’s plans have reached an advanced stage in engaging the youth in the services, manufacturing and Agric sectors.
He was speaking at a Joint Regional Webinar by the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) for six regions on the theme ‘Minimizing the impact of COVID-19 on job losses; building resistance and strategies.
The Minister reiterated government’s assurance to tackle head on the unemployment problem caused by the pandemic.
“The major pre-occupation of the government is to make sure that people who complete school or people that have reached the working age have access to work, and as I said per Ghana’s classification, work take places within the Agric sector, the manufacturing sector and then the services sector. As a responsible government what we do is that we create opportunities within all these areas to make sure that people are engaged.”
He indicated that research has taught the government that it is less strenuous to create jobs in the Agric sector and that has informed most of the administration’s policies on the sector.
“That is why immediately after the assumption of office, his Excellency the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched the planting for food and jobs. Because we have done the study with ILO and the conclusions are that if you want to provide quick jobs for the masses of people, it takes little investment to be able to get more people in the agriculture sector than perhaps in all other sectors of the economy.”
The outbreak of the COVID-19 disease has heightened many existing delicate issues in the country. The loss of jobs have been on the one of the major issues. This is as a result of many businesses being hit hard by the pandemic.
At the moment, the possibility of additional job losses still persist as there seem not to be an end to the pandemic. Government has been championing the idea that, we have to learn to live with the virus.
The Trades Union Congress, TUC, has entreated government to inject about 18 billion cedis into the various sectors of the economy to help wane the expected job losses that have been envisaged because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“One of the things we did was to estimate the loss of GDP that we are likely to experience because of COVID, and our estimation is based on the data provided by the Minister for Finance when he told Parliament that the 2020 GDP growth which was initially estimated at 6.6% will now be 1.5%. When we look at the numbers, we are looking at an output loss of about 18 billion, and our proposal is for government to find the resources that will fully restore us in terms of the output loss so we are asking government to invest about 18 billion Ghana Cedis into the economy between now and December.”
Director of Labour Research and Policy Institute at the TUC, Dr. Kwabena Nyarko Otoo
The stunted nature of employment in the country has been a concern for several years now. According to Prof. William Baah-Boateng, Ghana’s economic growth is not translating into the creation of jobs in the country. The Head of the Economics Department at the University of has therefore pointed out that the country must target critical sectors in the effort of creating jobs.
To reduce this problem, which he terms as “Jobless Growth”, government must focus on agriculture, manufacturing and tourism which have the propensity to create more jobs in the economy.
He also made his concerns about the lack of data on unemployment as well as available jobs in the country explicit.
