COVID-19 is expected to lead to almost seven per cent of all working hours globally in Q2 this year to be wiped out, which is the equivalent to the labour of 195 million full-time workers.
This research comes from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which stated that 6.7 per cent of global working hours in Q2 is to be erased. As well as stating that 81 per cent of the global workforce live in areas that have either seen full or partial closures of offices. Also, 125 million of the 195 million of the jobs to be affected are in the Asia-Pacific region.
Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) feels that in order to better support the workers of the UK, the five-day waiting time for Universal Credit needs to be removed.
Ms O’Grady said:
Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs around the world every day. It’s vital they all have the support they need to make ends meet and are not thrown into poverty.
In Britain, that means an urgent boost to universal credit and scrapping the five-week wait for support.
But a pandemic of this scale needs a global response. We need coordinated international action by governments to support health, protect jobs, give everyone access to social security and boost the economy when the recovery comes.
Working together we can not only protect jobs but save lives.
Guy Ryder, director-general of the ILO said:
We clearly need and we are seeing it around the world on an individualised national basis, efforts to stimulate economic activity through expansive fiscal and accommodating monetary policies – this is absolutely essential.
I think we have seen in a number of countries very appropriate reactions which enable companies to benefit from public support but at the same time take their responsibilities in retaining their employees and keeping them connected to the company involved and to the labour market.
Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.
