In 2022, the global activity rate will remain 1.2% below that of 2019, according to estimates by the organization.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on employment around the world, and a recovery to pre-health crisis levels could take several years, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said on Monday.
The ILO (UN agency) has been forced to lower its forecasts for the recovery of the labor market this year, especially due to the impact caused by the delta and omicron variants of the coronavirus in most countries.
Now your predictions. point to an overall shortfall in hours worked equivalent to 52 million full-time jobs, compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.
That is, double what the United Nations expected in May 2021, according to the report on labor market trends in 2022, released this Monday.
“After two years of (health) crisis, the outlook remains fragile and the path to recovery is slow and uncertain,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said in a statement.
“We are already seeing potentially lasting damage to the labor market, along with a worrying rise in poverty and inequality,” Ryder added, citing as an example that “workers are being forced to switch to a different type of work”, as in the tourism and international travel sectors, particularly affected by sanitary restrictions.
The official unemployment rate continues to be higher than before the pandemic, and this situation is expected to continue until at least 2023.
The ILO estimates the number of unemployed for 2022 at 207 million people (5.9% of the labor force), against 186 million in 2019.
Years to repair damage
In 2022, the global activity rate will remain 1.2% below that of 2019, according to estimates by the organization.
However, it underlines in particular that the health crisis — which has already caused, according to official balances, more than 5.5 million deaths and has cost trillions of dollars — has had much more serious effects than those mentioned, since includes those people who have left the labor market.
“There can be no true recovery from this pandemic without a broad labor market recovery.. And, to be sustainable, this recovery must be based on the principles of decent work, including health and safety, equality, social protection and social dialogue,” Ryder warned.
According to this report, North America and Europe show stronger signs of recovery than Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
On a national scale, as expected, The ILO predicts that “the labor market recovery will be stronger in high-income countries, while it is perceived to be weaker in low- and middle-income economies”.
“The excessive impact of the job crisis on women is likely to persist for years to come,” the report continues, adding that school closures, sometimes for very long periods, “will have a long-term cascading effect” on young people, especially among those who do not have access to the internet.
For Guy Ryder, “without a joint effort and effective policies, both at the international and national levels, it is very likely that in some countries it will take years to repair the damage”, which will be accompanied by other long-term consequences “in terms of the participation rate, household income, but also for social cohesion and even at the political level”, he added. (I)
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