The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has launched the third wave of the Covid-19 Household and Jobs Tracker survey.

The households and jobs tracker provides insight into how household lives and jobs have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the Service, households from all 16 regions were included and interviews were conducted in local languages from December 1 to December 13, 2021.

The survey among other things revealed that rural households in the country were less food insecure during the pandemic and that money spent on personal protective equipment’s per week had a toll on their income.

It also revealed that only 26.7% of respondents indicated that their total household income stayed the same as compared to the period before COVID-19 (March 16, 2020). 5.1% of respondents indicated that their total income increased, while 68.2% indicated that their household income decreased.

Speaking during the launch of the survey, the Project Coordinator of the Ghana Statistical Service, Victor Boateng Owusu urged policymakers to utilize the Covid-19 Household and Jobs Tracker survey to aid in making informed decisions.  

He said it should inform policy direction in supporting the extremely poor and vulnerable households and safeguarding progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“In the view of our development on how this report can be to policymakers when you look at the cost of PPEs been a burden on household which is 12 cedis per week, then you ask yourself as a policymaker how are you going to make it lesser for households. What is the minimum wage that households or workers enjoy in the country? And if 12 cedis is going to be spent on PPEs, what will be the effect on a household, and this is what we also expect policymakers can also look at”.  

The survey comes from continuous cooperation between GSS, UNICEF, and The World Bank with technical support from Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).