Egypt: Al-Ghad fires 100 employees over coronavirus

Egypt-based Al-Ghad television station has fired about 100 employees without prior notification because of the coronavirus pandemic, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported yesterday.

The agency’s management explained that the decision was made over “the spread of the extraordinary coronavirus and its impact on the economy.”

“Due to the current economic situation following the spread of the coronavirus, the company will be taking some unfortunate measures including; reducing operations, deducting salaries and firing some colleagues,” the agency said in an official email to its staff members.

Al-Ghad is owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is reportedly managed by Egypt’s state intelligence. Its employees include journalists and workers of different Arab nationalities but the majority are Egyptians and Palestinians.

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An official source at the agency told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that most of the dismissed employees were Egyptians.

The source noted that the agency’s management was also “planning to cut salaries by half” but had retreated after a recent call by the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to public and private sector organisations “not cut staff salaries.”

I a related development, the prominent Egyptian journalist, Mahmoud Kamel, recently filed a complaint to the chief of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, Diaa Rashwan, alerting that Al-Ghad was “planning to fire 80 staff members including journalists, workers, and administrative employees, without a justification.”

Since appearing in Wuhan, China last December, the virus has spread to at least 184 countries and regions. So far, at least 1,847,095 people worldwide have contracted the virus, of whom more than 113,902 have died. The World Health Organisation has declared the crisis to be a pandemic.

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