(Newser)
– Four times more jobs were lost last year due to the coronavirus pandemic than during the worst part of the 2009 global financial crisis, according to a UN report. The International Labor Organization estimated that restrictions on business and public life destroyed 8.8% of all working hours worldwide last year. That equates to 255 million full-time jobs: quadrupling the impact of the financial crisis a decade ago, according to the PA. “This has been the worst crisis in the world of work since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its impact is much greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009,” said Guy Ryder, Director-General of the ILO. The consequences were split almost equally between reduced working hours and the loss of “unprecedented” jobs, he said.
The United Nations agency noted that most people who lost their jobs stopped looking for work, probably due to restrictions on companies that hire a large number of restaurants, bars, shops, hotels and other services. which depend on face-to-face interactions. The fall in employment translates into a $ 3.7 trillion loss of revenue worldwide (what Ryder called an “extraordinary figure”), with women and youth achieving the greatest successes. The ILO report predicts a rise in jobs during the second half of the year. But that depends on reducing coronavirus infections and deploying vaccines. Currently, infections continue to increase or remain high in many countries and, in general, the distribution of vaccines is slow. (The pandemic has helped put the Chinese economy on the fast track to overtaking the U.S.).