No less than 42 percentage of persons employed before the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic have lost their jobs, the World Bank has said.
The World Bank through its Senior Financial Sector Specialist, Ahmed Rostom, shared the information in a data during a Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) virtual conference on risk sharing.
Rostom said: “42% of individuals who were working before March 2020, especially those working in hospitality and service industry are no longer working.”
He described the situation as disturbing.
The panellists agreed that credit risk guarantee will provide a safety net for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to access credit post COVID-19.
The panelists also agreed that MSME’s are the largest employers of labour as they account for about 84 per cent of jobs in the country.
“They are important industrialisation agents, and a driving force in the attainment of industrial growth because of their value chain diversification and expansion of industrial production. They contribute nearly half of the country’s GDP at 48 per cent yet less than 5 per cent of MSME’s have access to finance,” they said.
