Ghana’s economy lost 42,000 jobs in the second quarter of 2020 during the country’s Coronavirus lockdown, President Akufo-Addo has said.

It may be the biggest fall in job numbers since the Ghana Statistical Service started its job-related survey.

“The COVID-19 Business Tracker, again, showed that about seven hundred and seventy thousand (770,000) workers had their wages reduced during the three-week partial lockdown imposed on the Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Areas and their contiguous districts”, the President indicated.

He however added that the government succeeded in protecting the jobs of public sector workers.

Delivering his State of the Nation Address in parliament on Tuesday, March 9, the President however indicated that a number of measures were rolled out to stem the tide.

He mentioned for instance, “the waiver of personal income tax and provision of an additional fifty percent basic salary allowance, provision of food packages for residents in areas affected by partial lockdowns and the provision of free water and electricity”, are most of the support packages roll out by his government.

Restrictions were brought in to try and prevent the spread of the virus and the economy subsequently shrank at an unprecedented level.

According to the United Nations, the COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented hit to the global economy last year destroying the equivalent of 225 million full-time jobs.

Most businesses in Ghana were shut for weeks since the pandemic broke out in March 12, 2020.

It was one of the strictest lockdowns across Africa.