Chaguanas MP Karim warns of job losses

Chaguanas East MP Fazal Karim is warning of the potential for massive job losses as a result of the fallout from the covid19 pandemic crisis.

“When this charade on state-owned television ends, many citizens will lose their jobs and a $1,500 grant could only stretch so far,” Karim said in a press release sent on Monday. He said that over 60,000 jobs were lost since government assumed office in 2015 and the projection is a further 80,000 job losses in the coming months.

While underscoring the importance of flattening the covid19 infection curve, Karim stated that TT is battling a double-edged sword of the health and wealth of the nation. He called for a medium-term economic recovery plan and stated that the business chambers and labour movement should have already been engaged in meaningful dialogue to strategise on sustainable job creation post-coronavirus.

He said that workers at hotels, restaurants, airlines, automotive dealerships, and retail shops have already begun to be laid off or furloughed, and that international trends are showing labour markets collapsing. This will only get worse, he added, after the Prime Minister announced on Monday, that all restaurants and public eating places must remain closed until April 30.

The US Department of Labour reported that unemployment insurance claims doubled from 3.3 million to 6.6 million in one week - - totalling 10 million in the last two weeks of March 2020. In the United Kingdom, nearly 1 million people had applied for the government’s universal credit benefit (ten times the norm) in the past two weeks.

Karim called on government to consider the self-employed segment of the economy most affected by the virus such as barbers, hairdressers, caterers, massage therapists, gym/fitness instructors, taxi drivers, among others.

He referenced Singapore which introduced a gradated wage support system whereby the state covered 50 per cent of wages in the food services sector, 75 per cent of wages in the aviation and tourism sectors, and a monthly payment of S$1,000, for nine-months, for self-employed workers.

In Germany, a short-term working scheme known as 'Kurzarbeit' is used by the state to fund two-thirds of salaries and prevent massive layoffs by employers - a strategy that worked in containing unemployment levels during the Euro crisis.

Karim also condemned government saying citizens are faced with the strongest economic storm of modern history, a collapse in energy prices, the coronavirus pandemic and an incompetent government with no job recovery plan.