Kingdom needs ‘urgent strategy’ to assist private sector in face of COVID-19 losses

AMMAN — Economy experts on Saturday called on the government to come up with an urgent economic plan to help the private sector, which is expected to suffer from the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on businesses and employees.

“It is the government’s duty to support the private sector, which was hit the most by the need to reexamine their financial allocationin the state budget,” said Ahmad Awad, director of Phenix Centre for Economic Studies.

Awad told The Jordan Times that the government’s priority “should be focused on protecting and supporting private businesses so that they can pay their workers and ensure the continuity of the national economy”.

Meanwhile, economy columnist and expert Musa Saket called on the government to draft an “urgent national economic strategy to face the current situation in order to ensure the sustainability of Jordan’s economy”.

“The most important thing now is to find solutions for the expected lack of liquidity that is going to occur in the coming weeks, which will result in the halting of many economic activities and sectors,” Saket told The Jordan Times.

He stressed the need to keep these sectors working so that they can pay their employees, who depend on their salaries for loans and other daily necessities.

Saket said there are several solutions that could be adopted by the government, such as providing small loans to employees who are not working, or banks offering loans at zero interest to companies that have been impacted the most.

Another important step on the part of the government would be to decrease the payments of companies and individuals to the Social Security Corporation (SSC).

Awad added that another solution that the government should provide is supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises by contributing some part of the employees’ salaries.

“The government surely needs to allocate an emergency fund to alleviate the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis on the business and labour sectors in Jordan,” Awad said.

Meanwhile, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) issued a statement warning that the COVID-19 pandemic could increase the number of unemployed globally by almost 25 million.

However, if there is an internationally coordinated policy response, similar to that of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the impact on global unemployment could be “significantly lower”, according to the statement.

Turning to Jordan, the ILO statement said that Jordan’s recent measures to fight the spread of the virus are “pivotal” in its battle against COVID-19.

“But we must also examine the new challenges the crisis has created in the labour market, especially for the most vulnerable workers — be they Jordanians, refugees or migrants,” read the ILO statement.

Daily or seasonal workers, such as those employed in agriculture or construction, workers and their families who are not covered by social security or other safety nets, refugees living inside camps or Jordanians living in impoverished conditions — these are only a few examples of workers whose existing vulnerabilities have been or will be compounded by the current crisis, according to the ILO statement.

The organisation called on the government to conduct a rapid assessment on the impact of the current situation on unemployment and underemployment, as well as its implications on labour income and working poverty through online and phone surveys and by examining existing government and employment centre databases.

“Such an assessment can help us better understand the scope of the crisis and some of the pressing issues and concerns which workers from different walks of life are facing today, such as their current employment status, source of income, expenditure channels and poverty levels,” the ILO said in the statement.

These results can “help us design new interventions which meet the needs of these workers”, the ILO said.