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BL Premium reports that enormous job losses in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdowns worldwide have propelled unemployment to the top of risks to doing business as identified by business executives.
The World Economic Forum's (WEF's) “Regional Risks for Doing Business 2020” survey, for which more than 12,000 business leaders from 127 countries were polled, also shows infectious diseases jumping 28 places to second place as the world faces an unprecedented health emergency that closed down key industries and heavily affected industries such as tourism. With governments having to boost spending and borrowing to mitigate the fallout, the potential of fiscal crises remains high among topics of concern, though it fell from first to third. The job losses caused by the pandemic, with SA having lost more than 2-million jobs in the second quarter, is compounding an economic crisis that was well under way before the Covid-19 outbreak. Investors are awaiting finance minister Tito Mboweni’s medium-term budget policy statement later in October to hear how he plans to address a fiscal crisis that is set to push the 2020 budget deficit to nearly 16% of GDP. Saadia Zahidi, MD of the WEF remarked: “As we emerge from the crisis, leaders have a remarkable opportunity to create new jobs, support living wages, and reimagine social safety nets to adequately meet the challenges in the labour markets of tomorrow.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ntando Thukwana at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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