Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 195 million people around the world will be jobless in the next 90 days (3 months) said a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
International Labour Organisation estimates that almost 38 per cent of the global workforce which represents 1.25 billion workers are employed in sectors such as accommodation, food services, manufacturing and retail trade that are facing a severe decline in output and a high risk of unemployment.
Wholesale and retail segments have the biggest share of workers with 482 million workers who are lowly paid and unprotected while the most affected sector accommodation and food services account for 144 million workers.
According to the ILO report, the food and accommodation sector is suffering from almost full closure in some countries.
The manufacturing sector employs 463 million workers has also been greatly affected by the pandemic with factories closed, workers asked to stay at home and the disruption of the global supply chains.
In a statement released last week by the UN agency said that the full or partial lockdown taken by governments to curb COVID-19 is now affecting almost 2.7 billion workers which represent 81 per cent of the world’s workforce.
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Many businesses are facing great losses, which is affecting their operations, solvency, and mostly smaller enterprises with millions of workers facing income loss and layoffs.
“Employment contraction has already begun on a large (often unprecedented) scale in many countries. In the absence of other data, changes in working hours, which reflect layoffs and other temporary reductions in working time, give a better picture about the dire reality of the labour market situation,” said the report.
Speaking to a French TV ILO director-general Guy Ryder said that “There were considerable efforts being made by individual’ governments to put physical stimulus into their economies, to accommodate monetary policies and this is welcome, however, the problem is that it is of course done individually. There are very little by way of global co-ordination.
Particularly in low- and middle-income countries, hard-hit sectors have a high proportion of workers in informal employment and workers with limited access to health services and social protection. Without appropriate policy measures, workers face a high risk of falling into poverty and will experience greater challenges in regaining their livelihoods”.
