400m jobs lost globally
Says UN as employment crisis deepens; EU reopens border as virus surges in US
The coronavirus crisis has taken a much heavier toll on jobs than previously feared, the UN said Tuesday, warning that the situation in the Americas was particularly dire.
In a fresh study, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that by the mid-year point, global working hours were down 14 percent compared to last December -- equivalent to some 400 million full-time jobs.
That is more than double the number forecast by the UN organisation back in April, when it expected 6.7 percent of working hours to be lost by the end of the second three-month period of the year.
It is also far higher than the ILO estimate in late May, when it expected 10.7 percent of global working hours to vanish during the period.
"Things are getting worse. The job crisis is deepening," ILO chief Guy Ryder told AFP in an interview. "We are not through this yet," he warned.
The ILO said the new figures reflected the worsening situation in many regions in recent weeks, especially in developing economies.
Its report pointed out that 93 percent of the world's workers live in countries still affected by some sort of workplace closures, with the Americas experiencing the greatest restrictions.
The United States and Latin America are currently the areas hardest-hit by the pandemic, which has killed more than 511,000 people worldwide and infected more than 10 million.
Soaring transmission rates in the United States, which alone accounts for a quarter of all infections and deaths globally, and in countries like Brazil, which accounts more than 1.3 million cases, have hit the labour market hard.
More than 47,000 cases announced across US in last 24 hours.
The crisis had also hit women harder, threatening decades of progress, said Ryder.
The European Union reopened its borders yesterday to visitors from 15 countries but excluded the United States, where coronavirus deaths are spiking once again.
The final list of nations safe enough to allow residents to enter the EU did not include Russia, Brazil or the US, where the daily death toll passed 1,000 on Tuesday for the first time since June 10.
US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci said the United States was heading in the "wrong direction" and warned it could see 100,000 cases a day if the current trend continued, reports AFP.
India recorded 5,85,493 lakh Covid-19 cases in all while the death toll crossed 17,400 mark. In the last 24 hours, 507 deaths and 18,653 new cases were reported across the nation.
The financial world continues to reel from the disease's impact, with travel restrictions tearing through the aviation industry in particular.
European aircraft maker Airbus said it was planning to cut around 15,000 jobs worldwide, 11 percent of its total workforce.
Greece, which has suffered fewer than 200 virus deaths, has seen its economy hit hard by lockdowns and travel restrictions -- all but ending its lucrative tourism season before it began.
The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has extended a lockdown on a district hit by a outbreak at a slaughterhouse.
Parts of the Australian city of Melbourne suffered sharp rises in infections, spurring new stay-at-home measures affecting some 300,000 people.