Covid-19 Wiped Out 81M Jobs In Asia-Pacific This Year: UN Agency

The economic blow from the coronavirus has wiped out 81 million jobs across Asia-Pacific this year, with women and young people disproportionately affected, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

“Covid-19 has inflicted a hammer-blow on the region’s labour markets,” Ms Chihoko Asada Miyakawa, the group’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Low levels of social security coverage and limited institutional capacity in many countries have made it difficult to help enterprises and workers back on their feet.”

Employment in Asia-Pacific showed a 4.2 per cent decline compared with the pre-crisis trend, with the gap at 4.6 per cent for women and 4 per cent for men, the ILO said in a report.

Young people have been especially affected by working-hour and job losses, the UN agency said, with the youth share of employment losses three to 18 times higher than their share of total employment.

With fewer paid hours of work available, median incomes are falling. Overall, labour incomes in the region fell by as much as 9.9 per cent in the first three quarters of the year, equivalent to a 3.4 per cent drop in gross domestic product, the ILO said.

The regional jobs disparity is largely driven by South Asia, where the 2020 employment estimate is nearly 50 million jobs below the pre-crisis baseline, according to the report. East Asia is estimated to see a gap of 16 million jobs, followed by South-east Asia and the Pacific Islands, with gaps estimated at 14 million and half a million jobs, respectively.

“Too many workers have been pushed backward into poverty,” the report said. “The region’s economies, workers and enterprises are struggling to bounce back from the crisis and to make progress toward inclusive growth.”

(Source: Strait Times)