ILO: global labor market recovery stalls and highly uneven

The recovery of the global labor market, which lost millions of jobs in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, has stalled in 2021 and reflects great disparity between advanced and developing countries due to factors such as unequal vaccination, warned the International Organization of the Labor (ILO).

In his new report on the effects of COVID-19 In global work, the ILO is pessimistic and estimates that by the end of the year the equivalent of 125 million jobs will have been lost compared to 2019 (latest figures before the pandemic), compared to the 100 million it predicted in its previous June forecast.

Vaccines and stimuli do not reach everywhere

The slow advance of vaccination in many developing economies, which prevents many workers from returning to their activities, together with the lack of fiscal stimulus measures in those same economies, are the main factors of stagnation and also of divergence between countries rich and poor.

“We had anticipated fragile but stable growth after the devastating impact of the pandemic, but that relative optimism has been erased due to the new waves of COVID-19 and a slower-than-expected economic recovery,” said the ILO Director-General. , Guy Ryder, presenting the figures.

In the third quarter of 2021, the ILO estimates a job loss equivalent to 136 million jobs compared to 2019, somewhat less than in the second (140 million), but more than in the first (131 million), which reflects the doubtful evolution of the world labor market.

“Unemployment has dropped but inactivity (job seekers) remains very high, and women and youth continue to be disproportionately affected by job loss,” Ryder analyzed.

At the regional level, the disparity is shown in the fact that in Europe the loss of working hours with respect to pre-pandemic levels was 2.5% in the third quarter, while in Asia it was 4.6%; in Africa it rose to 5.6%; in America, 5.4%, and in Arab countries, 6.5%.

The vaccination rate is key, according to the ILO, in these disparities, since more doses administered have meant in many economies a relaxation of restrictions in the workplace.

This vaccination rate is close to 60% in high-income economies and is only 1.5% in the poorest countries, which in employment terms means that in the third quarter almost two-thirds of the 136 million jobs lost – or equivalent – were recorded in medium or low economies.

“There is a two-speed evolution, in which high-income economies have already recovered to some extent while low-income economies continue to suffer severely from the pandemic,” stressed the director general of the ILO, who will leave office in March 2022.

One job created for every 14 vaccinated people

The organization translates the relationship between vaccines and employment with a simple formula: for every 14 people who have been administered a full dose regimen, an additional job is created in the global job market.

Without vaccines, for example, the loss of jobs in the second quarter of 2021 would not have been 140 million jobs, as calculated by the ILO report, but 174 million.

In parallel, the uneven application of stimulus measures to face the economic impact of the COVID-19 It has caused inequality in the recovery, considering that 86% of these stimuli were delivered in high-income countries.

In view of all these figures, the ILO did not want to predict in this report when the global labor market will be able to return to the employment figures of 2019: in June it anticipated that it would be in 2023, but this time, in Ryder’s words, “ it could be delayed more ”.

For the last quarter of 2021, the ILO estimates that the equivalent of 94 million jobs will be lost compared to 2019, a lower figure than in previous quarters, but still considerable.

In addition, there is a risk that it will increase not only due to vaccination problems but also factors such as battle necks in industrial production or inflation, as analyzed by the secretary general.

Faced with the pessimistic outlook, the head of the ILO called for more efforts to “avoid the current two-speed recovery” with measures such as a better distribution of vaccines in the developed world.

“International action, including financial and technical support, is paramount to facilitate a human-centered recovery,” the report concludes.