The labour income across the world is estimated to have declined by 10.7% or USD 3.5 trillion, in the first three quarters of this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said. “The devastating losses in working hours attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic have introduced a ‘large’ drop-in labour earnings for employees around the globe,” the ILO mentioned in its newest evaluation of the results of the pandemic on the world of labour.
Lower middle-income countries were estimated to be hit hardest, with 15.1% fall. This is equivalent to 5.5% of the global GDP for the first nine months of 2019. The loss excludes income support provided through government measures, the report added. According to the findings reported in the sixth edition of the ILO Monitor: Lower-middle-income countries like Nepal where the labour income losses reached 15.1%, with the Americas hardest-hit region at 12.1%. For upper-middle-income countries, the labour income loss is estimated to be 11.4%, and 10.1% in low-income countries. Workers in high-income countries are estimated to have lost labour income up to 9.0%.
The revised estimate of the global working time lost in the second quarter of this year (compared to Q4 2019) is for 17.3 per cent, equivalent to 495 million full-time equivalents (FTE) jobs. The working-hour losses are expected to remain high in the third quarter of 2020, at 12.1 per cent or 345 million FTE jobs. Under the ILO’s baseline scenario, global working-hour losses are now projected to amount to 8.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 (compared to Q4 2019), which corresponds to 245 million FTE jobs. This is an increase from the ILO’s previous estimate of 4.9 per cent or 140 million FTE jobs.
“On top of this, these are the places where there are the weakest social protection systems, so there are very few resources or protections for working people to fall back upon,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder told journalists in Geneva.
The ILO stated a cause for the estimated will increase in working-hour losses is that employees in growing and rising economies, particularly these in casual employment, have been far more affected than by previous crises. It additionally notes that the drop in employment is extra attributable to inactivity than unemployment, with vital coverage implications. “While many stringent workplace closures have been relaxed, there are significant variations between regions. 94 per cent of workers are still in countries with some sort of workplace restrictions and 32 per cent are in countries with closures for all but essential workplaces,” the company stated.
