GENEVA — The U.N.’s labor organization estimates the equivalent of 195 million full-time jobs could be lost in the second quarter alone from the COVID-19 outbreak, with businesses and plants shuttered worldwide.
The projection from the International Labor Organization is based on an emerging impact of the virus, and it amounts to a big increase from its March 18 prediction for an extra 25 million jobs losses for all of 2020.
ILO Director-General Guy Ryder says, “These figures speak powerfully for themselves: That the world of work is suffering an absolutely extraordinary fall."
The agency says full or partial lockdown measures now affect nearly 2.7 billion workers or about 81 percent of the global workforce.
Some 1.25 billion are in hard-hit sectors such as hotel and food services, manufacturing and retail.
