1.6 billion workers at risk of losing jobs: ILO

Some 1.6 billion workers in the ‘informal economy,’ which includes work without proper contracts or oversight by government regulation and taxes, ‘stand in immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed’, said the International Labour Organization (ILO) in its latest report on Wednesday. That’s nearly half the global workforce of 3.3 billion people.

“For millions of workers, no income means no food, no security and no future. Millions of businesses around the world are barely breathing,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. “They have no savings or access to credit. These are the real faces of the world of work. If we don’t help them now, they will simply perish,” he said. The ILO’s latest assessment of the worldwide situation suggests the calamitous scale of the impact of the pandemic on jobs. Coronavirus has infected over 32 lakh people globall, taken the lives of 2.28 lakh and shut down several of the world’s most major economies.

The UN main labour body also estimated that the equivalent of 305 million full-time jobs could be lost in the second quarter alone. It said the expansion of longer lockdown measures has underpinned the increase from its previous estimate of losses 195 million full-time job equivalents – based on an average 48-hour work week – in the current quarter. The agency, which unites business, labour groups and governments, estimated how many work hours are likely to be lost, and calculated how many full-time jobs that would make.