KATHMANDU, Oct 11: Nepal recorded additional 153,162 individuals in the unemployment list in the past one week. Job losses have impacted people from all walks of life across the country.
According to the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security, the additional number of unemployed people was recorded on the basis of the applications registered by the Ministry from October 1 to 8. The number includes those who lost their job both at home and those returning home after losing jobs abroad.
As per the government records, the pandemic has left 416,491 individuals jobless in Nepal as of September end. With the new number, the total number of job losses has reached 569,653.
Due to the periodic and localized lockdowns in different parts of the country and disruptions in various sectors including tourism, economic activities have come to a halt. The number of unemployed people is likely to go up in the coming months as a sizable number of migrant workers have started returning home after losing jobs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The World Bank in its report ‘South Asia Economic Focus’ that was unveiled last Wednesday projected Nepal’s growth rate to slump to 0.6 percent in the current fiscal year 2020/21. The international lending institution has attributed the problem to the ongoing pandemic.
Informal workers and firms have been equally hit hard by the pandemic, states the report. However, the exact number of people losing jobs in this sector is difficult to obtain.