People in search of job more than doubled since Covid-19 hits Nigeria ~Jobberman

The number of Nigerians in search of job has more than doubled since the outbreak of the Coronavirus and the attendant lockdown imposed by the government to contain its spread, an online job portal has said.
Jobberman told Reuters that the number of its clients searching for work had more than doubled in recent times.
The chief executive officer of the company, Hilda Kragha said the company now receives about 50,000 job seekers week-on-week compared with about 20,000 previously before the advent of Covid-19.
“Typically, we have about 20,000 active job seekers week-on-week. The past few months it’s been up to 50,000,” she said.
Kragha said companies in hospitality, entertainment and advertising were worst hit by the avalanche of job loss that has hit the country in the course of the lockdown.
A number of commercial lenders have sent home many of their contract staff since the lockdown across the country, while many of their staff are now receiving less than 60 percent of their salary as their managements have resorted to pay cut.
The news agency report showed that many people lost their job due to the lockdown necessitated by the efforts to contain the spread of the dreaded disease.
Mary Uzoma had never been unemployed until March when she was among those laid off by the transport company she worked for in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.
For the last year, in her role as a trainer, she traveled to other Nigerian states to teach motorcycle taxi drivers how to use the ride-hailing firm’s software.
But, following Nigeria’s first confirmed case of the new coronavirus in late February and the announcement of a lockdown in Lagos from March 30, the company decided to shed staff fearing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel.
“It’s been very hard finding something to do… because most organisations have gone into virtual work, so nobody wants to employ new people,” said 29-year-old Uzoma.
A government report on the impact of the outbreak said some 39.4 million people – about a third of Nigeria’s workforce – may be unemployed by the end of this year.
The government expects Africa’s biggest economy to contract by 3.4 percent this year as a result of the pandemic. Nigeria has reported around 17,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 400 deaths.
Meanwhile, the cost of living has risen steadily. Annual inflation rose for the ninth straight month in May, to a two-year high of 12.4 percent.
*Photo: Unsplash/Carl Heyerdahl
*Additional report #GFD