Many workers have abandoned their previous jobs and changed their priorities in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The United Nations’ International Labour Organisation (ILO) announced this from its headquarters in Geneva on Monday.
“We are already seeing potentially lasting damage to labour markets, along with concerning increases in poverty and inequality,’’ ILO’s Director – General Guy Ryder said.
“Many workers are being required to shift to new types of work, for example in response to the prolonged slump in international travel and tourism,’’ Ryder added.
He pointed to the gastronomy, retail and care sectors in particular, terming the phenomenon “COVID Clarity“.
“Many people had realized that their previous jobs no longer met their expectations or that they were not getting the recognition that they were due.
“For this and other reasons, many were no longer actively looking for work, with the result that actual unemployment was higher than shown by the official figures,” Ryder said.
The number of unemployed could reach 207 million this year on the basis of the official statistics, according to the UN agency’s report on employment trends for 2022.
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While this reflects a decline from 214 million in 2021 and 224 million in 2020, it is considerably higher than the 189 million recorded for 2019, the year before the pandemic struck.
According to Ryder, global labour markets are recovering considerably more slowly than expected, with the ILO forecasting that the jobless figure will remain above pre-crisis levels until at least 2023.
He attributed this to the particularly infectious Coronavirus variants Delta, Omicron and uncertainty over the course the pandemic.
