In the first quarter of 2021 the loss of working hours was equivalent to 131 million jobs.
The coronavirus pandemic will destroy the equivalent of 125 million jobs worldwide in 2021, the International Labor Organization (ILO) warned today, after warning that the recovery of the global labor market has stalled, which has led to worsen their forecasts.
By the middle of the year the organization had estimated that by the end of 2021 hours of work equivalent to 100 million jobs would be lost, a figure that has increased by 25 million after observing that in the third quarter the figures are even worse than at the beginning of the year .
In the first quarter of 2021, the loss of working hours was equivalent to 131 million jobs, in the second it rose to 140 million, in the third it stood at 136 million and for the fourth it is estimated that it will still amount to 94 million, according to the report on the effects of the pandemic on employment published today by the ILO.
The figures are calculated in relation to the fourth quarter of 2019, the last before the pandemic, and not only take into account total job losses, but also the reduction in working hours and other factors that will contribute to a decrease in hours worked.
Although the situation is better than that of 2020, the year in which the equivalent of 255 million jobs were lost, the ILO warns in its report of a “stagnation of the global recovery” accompanied by “significant disparities between advanced economies and developing”.
In this sense, while in Europe the loss of working hours compared to pre-pandemic levels was 2.5% in the third quarter, in Asia it was 4.6%, in Africa it rose to 5.6%; in America, 5.4%, and in the Arab countries, 6.5%.
The Geneva-based organization considers that these regional differences are mainly due to the different vaccination rates between developed and developing countries, taking into account that the inoculation rate is close to 60% in high-income economies and is only 1 , 5% in the poorest countries.
Higher vaccination rates mean a relaxation of restrictions in the workplace, so its influence on the global market outlook is very significant: in the third quarter, almost two-thirds of the 136 million jobs lost (or equivalent) they were lost in medium or low economies. (I)
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