Four times as many jobs were lost last year due to coronavirus lockdowns as during the worst part of the global financial crisis in 2009, a U.N. report said Monday.
The International Labor Organization estimated that the restrictions on businesses and public life destroyed 8.8 percent of all work hours around the world last year.
That is equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs — quadruple the impact of the financial crisis over a decade ago.
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“This has been the most severe crisis for the world of work since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said.
The devastation was almost equally split between reduced work hours and “unprecedented” job losses, he said.
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The United Nations agency noted that most people who lost work stopped looking for a job altogether, likely because of restrictions on businesses that hire in big numbers like restaurants, bars, stores, hotels and other services that depend on face-to-face interactions.
The drop in work corresponds to a loss of $3.7 trillion in income globally — what Ryder called an “extraordinary figure” — with women and young people taking the biggest hits.
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The ILO report expects a recovery in the second half of the year.
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