SoNA 2021: Government sustained jobs of public sector workers despite coronavirus

The government was able to sustain all public sector workers in employment despite the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has disclosed.

According to the President, although most businesses in Ghana were affected by the pandemic leading to loss of jobs, no public sector worker lost their job during the period.

Delivering his State of the Nation address (SoNA) in Parliament on Tuesday, 9 March 2021, President Akufo-Addo said: “According to the COVID-19 Business Tracker survey conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the World Bank.

“The covid-19 pandemic has led to job losses with many Ghanaian businesses and firms being forced to cut cost by reducing staff hours, cutting wages and in some cases, laying off workers.”

He further noted that during the 3-week partial lockdown imposed on parts of the country in 2020, wages of 770,000 employees of various companies were reduced.

“This survey again showed that about 770,000 workers had their wages reduced and about 42,000 employees were laid off during the 3-week partial lockdown imposed on the Greater Accra and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan areas and their continuous districts Tema and Kasoa.

“Government however succeeded in protecting the jobs and income of all public sector employees,” President Akufo-Addo stated.

He added that: “Indeed the cost of COVID-19 has been enormous. Our overall economic growth rate for 2020 was reviewed downwards from 6.8 percent to 0.9 percent the non-oil economy was also revised from 6.7 percent to 1.6percent.”