Tanzania: Employees Need Support As Coronavirus Outbreak Bites

THE International Labour Organisation (ILO) said recently that about 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy-nearly half of the global workforce-risked having their livelihoods destroyed and

more than 436 million enterprises faced high risks of serious disruption globally due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

Giving its update on global job losses, the ILO said the drop in working hours in the current (second) quarter of 2020 was expected to be higher than previously estimated.

This was two days before the world marked International Labour Day on May 1.

This, according to the ILO, translates into a drop of 81 percent in Africa and the Americas, 21.6 percent in Asia and the Pacific, and 70 percent in Europe and Central Asia.

Yes, the coronavirus pandemic is plaguing the world and causing economic crises due to some measures that have been taken to fight against the pandemic.

Countries that have implemented a lockdown, for instance, have caused their citizens to suffer job losses, low production and food shortages as well as lack of basic social services.

Yet, there is still an increase in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths although there is an increase in recovery cases.

For instance, as of yesterday, according to worldmeters.info (13:09pm), there were 3,424,210 coronavirus cases, 240,380 (18 per cent) deaths and 1,093,704 (82 percent) recovery cases across the world.

This translated into 2,090,126 globally infected patients, 2,038,943 patients (98 percent) in mild condition and 51,183 (2 percent) patients are in serious or critical condition.

In Tanzania, there are 480 coronavirus cases, 16 deaths and 167 recovery cases. This means before scientists find a vaccine or a cure for Covid-19, the world will have suffered a great deal as a result of the pandemic.

Some businesses have closed down after incurring losses and this has resulted in laying off of some of the employees.

This situation is not only happening in other countries, but also in our own country and although President John Magufuli has reiterated his call for working hard and praying to God so that we may find a lasting solution to the pandemic, there are certain sectors of the economy which have been hit hard in terms of job losses.

As the ILO suggests there is a need for urgent and flexible measures to support employees and businesses, particularly small-scale enterprises