By Stuart Bogere Oswald

KIU, Main Campus - Uganda's Ministry of Finance has reported over 60,000 cases of loss of jobs during and after the lockdown due to the resurgence of COVID-19 infections in the country.

The ministry, through through its Microeconomic Development Report, indicated that a total of 60,982 jobs were lost in one month due to the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to data, due to COVID-19, formal sector employment declined from 714,048 employees in May, 2021 to 653,066 employees in June 2021.

However, the report indicated that over 5000 Ugandans left the country in June to work in Saudi Arabia which is double the number of those who left in April.

Meanwhile, the ministry report shows that the pandemic generated new business opportunities and expanded manufacturing sub-sectoral activities by 2.1% compared to 1.3% over the same period.

An average annual growth in Industrial output recovered slightly from 3.3% in FY 2019/20 to 3.4% in FY 2020/21 thanks to a strong performance of the manufacturing sub-sector.