More than one in six youth out of work due to Covid-19: ILO

Geneva, 28 May (Kanaga Raja) – More than one in six young people have stopped working since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has said.
According to the fourth edition of the ILO Monitor, among young people who have remained in employment, working hours have fallen by 23 per cent. The ILO also said that around half of young students report a likely delay in the completion of their current studies, while 10 per cent expect to be unable to complete them at all.
“The COVID-19 economic crisis is hitting young people – especially women – harder and faster than any other group. If we do not take significant and immediate action to improve their situation, the legacy of the virus could be with us for decades,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.
“If their talent and energy is side-lined by a lack of opportunity or skills, it will damage all our futures and make it much more difficult to re-build a better, post-COVID economy,” he added.
According to the ILO Monitor, 94 per cent of the world’s workers are living in countries with some sort of workplace closure measures in place.
Although more and more countries are easing these measures to gradually allow workers to return to their workplaces, as at 17 May 2020, 20 per cent of the world’s workers lived in countries with required workplace closures for all but essential workers.
An additional 69 per cent lived in countries with required workplace closures for some sectors or categories of workers, and a further 5 per cent lived in countries with recommended workplace closures.
According to the ILO, young people constitute major victims of social and economic consequences of the pandemic, and there is a risk that they will be scarred throughout their working lives – leading to the emergence of a “lock-down generation”.
Young people are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 crisis, with multiple shocks including disruption to education and training, employment and income losses, and greater difficulties in finding a job.
A total of 178 million young workers around the world – more than four in ten young people employed globally – were working in hard-hit sectors when the crisis began, said the ILO.
Almost 77 per cent (or 328 million) of the world’s young workers were in informal jobs, compared with around 60 per cent of adult workers (aged 25 and above).
The youth informality (employment) rate ranges from 32.9 per cent in Europe and Central Asia to 93.4 per cent in Africa.
Even before the crisis, more than 267 million young people were not in employment, education or training (NEET), including almost 68 million unemployed young people.
The ILO also said that the crisis continues to cause an unprecedented reduction in economic activity and working time.
An estimated 4.8 per cent of working hours were lost during the first quarter of 2020 (equivalent to approximately 135 million full-time jobs, assuming a 48-hour working week), relative to the fourth quarter of 2019.
This represents a slight upward revision of around 7 million jobs since the third edition of the Monitor.
The estimated decline in work activity in the first quarter of 2020 is uneven across regions, said the ILO.
While the number of hours worked in the first quarter of 2020 declined by 6.5 per cent in Asia and the Pacific (driven by an 11.6 per cent decrease in East Asia), all other major regions experienced decreases of 3 per cent or less in the first quarter.
“This labour market pattern is closely related to the timing of outbreaks and the introduction of physical distancing measures in different regions of the world.”
According to the ILO, global patterns in hours lost in the first quarter are driven to a great extent by the exceptional impact of the COVID-19 crisis in China during that quarter.
The prospects for the second quarter of 2020 remain dire, it said.
As at 17 May 2020, estimates indicate that working hours will decline in the current quarter (Q2) by around 10.7 per cent relative to the last quarter of 2019, which is equivalent to 305 million full-time jobs (assuming a 48-hour working week).
From a regional perspective, the Americas and Europe and Central Asia present the largest losses in hours worked.
In the Americas, the loss of working hours in the second quarter is expected to reach 13.1 per cent relative to the pre-crisis level.
In Europe and Central Asia, the decline is estimated at 12.9 per cent. The estimates for the other regions follow closely, all being above 9.5 per cent.
South America and Southern and Western Europe are the regions with the largest upward revisions to loss of hours worked (by more than one percentage point) since the third edition of the ILO Monitor.
This reflects, respectively, the deteriorating situation in South America and the fact that the labour market impact of the measures taken in Europe has been more severe than expected, said the ILO.
However, through intensive testing and tracing, some countries have managed better than others to control the spread of COVID-19 and to minimize the restrictions to economic activity, it noted.
The ILO said its estimates suggest that testing and tracing (T&T) is associated with a reduction in working hour losses by as much as 50 per cent.
The ILO cited three reasons for this: T&T reduces reliance on strict confinement measures; it promotes public confidence and so encourages consumption and supports employment, and it helps minimize operational disruption at the workplace.
The estimated average loss of working hours for countries with the lowest T&T intensity is around 14 per cent, compared with 7 per cent for those with the highest intensity, it said.
The ILO also said that there are indications that the financial resources required for effective T&T are far less than the overall economic impact of the pandemic.
It estimated that testing expenditures in two countries with extensive T&T programmes are below 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
“Given the need to promote a safe return to work and the highly favourable benefit-to-cost ratio of T&T, investing in such a strategy provides a large expected return both in economic and social terms,” the ILO emphasized.
“Creating an employment-rich recovery that also promotes equity and sustainability means getting people and enterprises working again as soon as possible, in safe conditions,” said Director-General Ryder.
“Testing and tracing can be an important part of the policy package if we are to fight fear, reduce risk and get our economies and societies moving again quickly,” he added.
– Third World Network