Covid-19 caused losses equalling 255 million jobs globally: ILO

Muscat: The Covid-19 epidemic has caused severe damage to the jobs sector, with the equivalent of 255 million jobs lost across the world in 2020, according to the International Labour Organisation.

Oman News Agency (ONA), said: "In its seventh report devoted to the effects of the epidemic on the business world, the United Nations organisation said that in 2020, 8.8 per cent of the working hours in the world were lost (compared to the fourth quarter in 2019), equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs, meaning a loss of four times more working hours compared to the period of the financial crisis in 2009."

Guy Ryder, head of the International Labour Organisation, noted that this is the most severe crisis in the world of work since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
"Since the emergence of the pandemic in China a little more than a year ago, it has killed more than 2.1 million people, infected tens of millions and devastated the global economy."

The organisation stated, "About half of the lost working hours were calculated from the reduced working hours for those who remained at work, and that the world also witnessed unprecedented levels of job losses last year."