Employers’ Consultative Association of Malawi (Ecam) says 2024 is going to be another difficult year for the job market amid a slowing economy.

Ecam executive director George Khaki was reacting to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) statement which has since projected that unemployment rate would increase to 5.2 percent this year, up from 5.1 percent in 2023 to slowing economic growth.

Flashback: Part of the crowd that gathered for the interviews in Blantyre

In its 2024 World Employment and Social Outlook Trends, ILO anticipates the global labour market to be faced with a gap of 435 million jobs as 2 million people are expected to lose their jobs.

In an interview on Tuesday, Khaki said rising inflation rates, at 33.1 percent in November 2023, and the impending minimum wage hike, threatens the job market.

He said: “Prospects for 2024 are that we are still going to have difficulties in creating employment.

“We see the current trend of inflation going up, eating from the disposable incomes of consumers and thereby negatively impacting purchasing power.”

In an accompanying statement to the report, ILO director general Gilbert Houngbo observed that although global unemployment, working poverty and informality reduced in 2023, the ILO’s projections suggest that little positive change in these indicators can be expected in 2024.

He said: “Productivity growth and living standards have also not improved, in spite of technological progress that was widely projected to give these a boost.

Malawi is one of the three countries out of 46 economies in Africa with the highest working poverty rate, the proportion of the employed population living in poverty despite being at 70.18 percent, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca).

This implies that their employment-related incomes are not sufficient to lift them and their families out of poverty and ensure decent living conditions.

Meanwhile, government data shows that in Malawi, a paltry nine percent of the country’s population is in the labour workforce, shouldering the burden of providing for the remaining 91 percent.

Last year, Ministry of Labour had also forecasted slow growth of about 0.6 percent in the creation of new jobs between this year and 2024.

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