Labour Analyst Kofi Davor is urging government to urgently put in measures to halt the massive job losses in the private sector due to the ongoing power crises.
[contextly_sidebar id=”9hHAiPeBe0O1DE081tkrEfopOUfohoUP”]The Ghana Employers’ Associations said close to 13,000 workers have been sacked in the last four months alone because of the erratic power supply.
Speaking in an interview with Citi News the labour analyst insisted that the effect of the job losses on the workers, their families and the economy is dire.
He explained that “the consequences of what is happening today is not going to be felt immediately, it’s going to be felt in the next five to fifteen years. The effect is that people are not going to go to school, people are not going to be able to take care of their families, the multiply effect is so debilitating.
“The consequence into the long term is so frightening, I can imagine the number of people who are going to drop out of school because their parents cannot afford their fees. we appear to be assuming that it’s a normal problem that is staying with us. we need to be very careful,” Mr Davor added.
Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama has said government will soon establish a national employment resource center to collate a data base of job seekers.
According to him, the centre create an opportunity for employers to recruit young people from.
Under this restructuring and reform, we intend to create a new national employment resource centre. This new centre will enable the creation of a national employment and a skills database from which employers can freely recruit,” President Mahama declared.
In a related development, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned that unemployment will continue to rise in the coming years, as the global economy enters a new period combining slower growth, widening inequalities and turbulence.
“By 2019, more than 212 million people will be out of work, up from the current 201 million, according to the World Employment and Social Outlook – Trends 2015,” a report by the ILO stated.
The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) is projecting the loss of over 3,000 more jobs by close of 2015.
“If the trend is anything to go by, we are looking at about 2,000 to over 3,000 job losses within this year from our sector alone but we don’t know about others,” said the Secretary General of ICU, Solomon Kotei said on the Citi Breakfast Show.
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana