Namibian businesses dismiss around 9,000 workers in two quarters due to COVID-19
Namibia’s labor and employment sector went through a difficult time of an economic downturn due to COVID-19 and close to 8,881 Namibian’s lost their jobs and income while businesses struggle to remain operational and profitable, an official said Thursday.
Namibia’s Minister of Labor, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, Utoni Nujoma at an event in Windhoek said the workers were dismissed by 607 companies during the two quarters from April to September of this year.
“This represents an increase of more than nine times the dismissals as compared to the same period last year,” he said.
According to Nujoma, the strengthening of a solid and sustainable safety net for workers and employers by ensuring effective regulatory framework and compliance remains an important objective of the ministry.
“It is towards this objective that a tripartite task force was established to work on the possible areas of amendments to the Labor Act,” he said, adding that its final report will soon be submitted containing proposed amendments addressing various shortcomings and improvement in the legal framework
