55% of Yemeni workers laid off
English - Wednesday 30 March 2022 الساعة 04:19 pm
Aden, NewsYemen, special:
The coup of the Houthi militia against the state, which has been going on since September 2014, stripped the Yemeni economy of half its strength, and Yemeni families witnessed a decline in their incomes, while the prices of basic commodities and foodstuffs rose.
Food prices have risen dramatically since January 2021 by 199%, and according to the World Bank in 2019, an estimated three-quarters of the population lives below the poverty line, and more than half of them suffer from extreme poverty.
The United Nations estimates that at least 55 percent of the workforce has been laid off since the Houthi militia coup in late 2014, and more than 25 percent of companies have closed, while more than 40 percent of women-owned companies have gone bankrupt.
Declining purchasing power and disrupting the agricultural sector have left millions of Yemenis food insecure.
The small and medium enterprise sector in Yemen is exposed to a huge number of challenges and obstacles, in addition to the significant impact of instability and active conflict on entrepreneurial activities and the development of entrepreneurship in the economy.
Economists believe that the deteriorating business environment puts a lot of pressure on policy makers and international organizations to cooperate and create an enabling environment for small and medium enterprises to operate and economic growth.
They emphasized that the development of strategies and structural reforms is absolutely essential; To achieve economic and industrial recovery, and should be beneficial to achieving growth, providing economic welfare and changing entrepreneurship in Yemen.
The current conflict and political turmoil have had a significant impact on the business process over the past years, as Yemen's rank fell to 187th in the list of ease of doing business among 190 countries during 2019.
The handling of building permits, access to electricity, access to credit, property registration, investor protection, and contract enforcement has worsened over the past 10 years.
Micro, small and medium enterprises in Yemen represent 97% of the business sectors, with 290,000 establishments with less than 25 workers, and employing nearly 600,000 workers.
Small and smaller companies employ approximately 44.5% of the workforce, while medium enterprises employ 19.5%, and large enterprises employ 36%. According to the data of the Central Bureau of Statistics 2017.
Political instability was the main obstacle to entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneurship in Yemen, as identified by half of the country's SMEs, and 24% of SMEs see electricity as the main obstacle to entrepreneurship.
The study "Entrepreneurship in Yemen compared to the least developed countries" considered the Rwanda model as a road map to push the Yemeni economy towards achieving entrepreneurship change.
The study published by the Journal of Advanced Research in Economics and Administrative Sciences concluded that Yemen needs to adopt the dimensions of pioneering change that includes developing the country's human capital, and adopting development visions and strategies.
She emphasized that Yemen needs to enable competitive strategies, adopt development visions, reform the business environment and cooperate with international development partners; For the purpose of adopting pioneering change.
