The prolongation of the pandemic sinks the forecasts for the recovery of employment

The prolongation of the pandemic and the uncertainty it continues to generate have sunk the employment recovery forecasts for this year, for which a reduction of 52 million full-time jobs is projected compared to the last quarter of 2019, which doubles the deficit in hours worked forecast by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The previous estimate for the full year of 2022 was for a loss of 26 million full-time jobs. The consequence is that in the year that has begun the number of hours worked will be 2% less than before the pandemic and this is because the labor market continues to suffer from the effects of the health crisis.

The ILO report on the employment and social prospects for 2022, published today, indicates that global unemployment will remain above pre-coronavirus levels “until 2023 at the earliest”. There are currently 207 million unemployed people in the world, up from 186 million in 2019.

However, this is not the worst prognosis of the study, since the asymmetric recovery that has begun to be seen -between high and low income countries, within them and between sectors of their economies- is already causing “long-term chain effects”. term that could derail the recovery.”

difficult recovery

Experts see it as difficult to restore the conditions in the labor market prior to the pandemic in the short term due to the changes that have occurred in it, the increase in online services, the sharp rise in commercial costs and the alterations in the labor supply.

In social terms, these conditions are added to the increase in the prices of essential products, resulting in families having less disposable income.

“This damage is likely to take several years to repair and there could be long-term consequences on labor force participation, household income, social cohesion and possibly political cohesion,” said the director of the ILO, Guy Ryder.

By region, the report indicates that recovery patterns are divergent, with the most encouraging signs in Europe and North America, and the most negative in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Southeast Asia, while by country, those with high incomes will emerge from the crisis faster than those with low and middle incomes.

Employment Decline Data

For women, the crisis caused by the pandemic has other dimensions and the data analyzed indicate that the impact of the pandemic is more pronounced in female employment, which in 2022 will be 1.8% below the rate of 2019.

Among the explanations is that women are overrepresented in some of the sectors most affected by the pandemic (hotels, restaurants, retail trade), because they have been the ones who had to stay home to take care of the children who stopped going to the school or older relatives.

In addition, women represent the majority of the staff dedicated to nursing and patient care, activities that have come under great pressure in the last two years and from which a significant number of people have resigned due to poor working conditions. and overwork.

In the case of men, the difference is 1.6%, despite the fact that women generally have an employment rate 16 percentage points lower than men.

The report also reflects on the impact of the closure of vocational education and training centers -in some extreme cases for up to two school years-, which has ended up undermining the learning outcome and will have long-term consequences on employment and the continuity of education, particularly among those children and youth who have had limited access to the internet and technological devices.

Effect on poverty

In general, during the pandemic, poverty and extreme poverty (less than US$1.9 a day in purchasing power parity terms) have increased, in which 30 million adults have fallen after losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, the number of people who work but earn so little that they barely survive in conditions of extreme poverty increased by eight million.

Regarding informal employment, the ILO has observed that in the first phases of the health emergency it did not fulfill its traditional “countercyclical function”, consisting of absorbing displaced workers from the formal sector, since informal workers were more likely to lose their source of income. livelihood by being forced into inactivity by lockdowns.