Recession: More business closures, workers’ retrenchment loom, employers warn

Employers operating under the aegis of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, have warned of more business closures in the country, saying the operating environment in the in the last one year has been, “challenging, unpredictable, unstable and energy sapping.” The umbrella body for employers called for immediate application of the right economic and monetary policies and, particularly, development of local productive capacities through massive investments in infrastructure to rescue the economy from recession. The employers spoke on the heels of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figures which, last week, confirmed that the nation’s economy has gone into recession and that no fewer than four million jobs had been lost in the last three quarters. At its 59th Annual General Meeting in Lagos, President of NECA, Larry Ettah, said Nigeria urgently needed to fix its erratic power supply to beat down the cost of local production of goods and services and reduce the over $2 billion import bills that was putting pressure on the foreign exchange. The current 4,000 megawatts of electricity, Ettah said, was far below what was required to bail the economy out of recession, contending that Nigeria urgently needed between 15,000 and 20,000 megawatts of electricity to kick-start local production. He said this was required to re-energise many businesses which were faced with rising production and operational costs leading to retrenchment, compounding the rising unemployment rate of over 13 percent.