Covid impact on global labor 4 times worse than in 2009 financial crisis

Four times as many jobs were lost last year due to the coronavirus pandemic as, during the worst part of the global financial crisis in 2009, a U.N. report said Monday.

The International Labor Organization estimated that businesses and public life restrictions destroyed 8.8% of all work hours around the world last year. That is equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs - quadruple the financial crisis's impact over a decade ago.

"This has been the most severe crisis for the world of work since The Great Depression of the 1930s. Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009," said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. The fallout was almost equally split between reduced work hours and "unprecedented" job losses, he said.

The United Nations agency noted that most people who lost work stopped looking for a job altogether, likely because of restrictions on businesses that hire in big numbers like restaurants, bars, stores, hotels, and other services that depend on face-to-face interactions.

The drop-in work translates to a loss of $3.7 trillion in income globally — what Ryder called an "extraordinary figure" — with women and young people taking the biggest hits.

The ILO report expects a bounce-back in jobs in the second half of the year. But that depends on a reduction in coronavirus infections and the rollout of vaccines. Currently, infections are rising or remain stubbornly high in many countries, and vaccine distribution is still slow overall.