From lawyers in Paris to factory workers in China and bodyguards in Colombia, the ranks of the jobless are swelling rapidly across the globe.

Many Africans including Ghanaians have been affected by this development which has seen an increase in flight bookings back home.

According to labour analysts, this trend is likely to mount pressure on the continent’s already saturated job market since most of the returnees are mostly trained professionals from the United States and the United Kingdom.

In the United States for example, many clergymen have indicated how migrant members of their congregation, including Africans, visited them for prayers before setting out on their not-too-certain journey back home.

Labour Organization, a United Nations agency, says worldwide job losses from the recession could reach about 50 million.

Alexandra Levit, author of a book entitled: “New Job, New You” discloses that even though job loses would be a temporary feature for many industries, jobs in some fields will continue disappearing even after the global economy begins to pick up.

Among the top 10 industries that are expected to lose the most jobs by 2018 are the newspaper industry, departmental stores, semi-conductor manufacturing and motor vehicle parts manufacturing. Others are postal services, printing and related jobs, as well as cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing. The rest include mining support jobs, gas stations and wired telecom.

Mr. Levit projected that departmental stores would lose 10.2 percent of the 1.56 million jobs they had in 2008 while that of semiconductor manufacturing would lose 33.7 percent of the 432,000 jobs it had in the same year.

Motor vehicle parts manufacturing is projected to lose 18.6 percent of its 544,000 jobs while that of postal service will lose 13 percent of the 748,000 jobs it had in 2008. Levit further predicted that:
Printing and related jobs will lose 16 percent of its 594,000 jobs.
Cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing will lose 57 percent of its 155,000 jobs.

Newspaper publishers would lose 24.8 percent of its 326,000 jobs.
Mining support jobs will lose 23.2 percent of its 328,000 jobs.
Gas stations will also lose 8.9 percent of its 843,000 jobs and finally wired telecom will lose 11 percent of its 666,000 jobs.

“The job declines in these industries are projected to take place over a decade. Semiconductors are one of several manufacturing industries on the declining list. Because so many different types of manufacturing jobs are disappearing, it will not be easy to simply get another manufacturing job. You may need to develop some completely new skills and be innovative,” stated Mr. Levit.


Source: Felix Dela Klutse/Business Guide