The rapidly intensifying economic effects of COVID-19 on the world of work are proving to be far worse than the 2008-9 financial crisis, with cutbacks equivalent to nearly 200 million full-time workers expected in the next three months alone, the UN labour agency said. The warning comes almost three weeks after the International Labour Organization (ILO) predicted that 25 million jobs were threatened by the new coronavirus. According to the agency, the latest dire assessment reflects the full or partial lockdown measures affecting almost 2.7 billion workers – four in five of the world’s workforce.
Workers in four sectors that have experienced the most “drastic” effects of the disease and falling production are: food and accommodation (144 million workers), retail and wholesale (482 million); business services and administration (157 million); and manufacturing (463 million). Together, they add up to 37.5 per cent of global employment and this is where the “sharp end” of the impact of the pandemic is being felt now, the ILO chief added.
Although all regions of the world are suffering from the fallout of COVID-19, Arab States and Europe have seen the worst impact on employment in percentage terms. The biggest losses numerically are in Asia-Pacific States, the most populous region of the world.
An additional concern is the fact that in low and middle-income countries, the worst-hit industries and services have a high proportion of low-wage workers in informal employment, with limited access to health services and State welfare safety nets. It underscored that around two billion people work informally, most of them in emerging and developing countries, and that “tens of millions” of informal workers have already been affected by COVID-19. In urban areas, moreover, these workers also tend to work in economic sectors that “not only carry a high risk of virus infection but are also directly impacted by lockdown measures”: waste recyclers, street vendors and food servers, construction workers, transport workers and domestic workers. 400 million workers in the vulnerable sector now face falling greater impoverishment.
Much depends on the action taken by Governments to soften the blow by ensuring the conditions for a prompt, job-rich recovery once the pandemic is under control, Mr. Ryder said. Welcoming the fiscal stimulus measures already agreed on by the G20 group of industrialised nations, the ILO chief called for “much more targeted interventions” for businesses that were “viable in any normal circumstances”. It was crucial that these enterprises were in turn able to sustain their employees, he insisted, as experience of past crises “shows just how important that type of intervention is in the longer term, particularly in terms not only of surviving, but of emerging from the crisis”.
ILO’s four-pillar post-COVID recovery priorities are: stimulating the economy and employment, supporting enterprises, jobs and incomes, protecting workers in the workplace and relying on social dialogue for solutions.
Source: UN
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