According to the latest data released by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the coronavirus pandemic has caused "severe damage" to the jobs sectors across the world, with approximately 255 million jobs lost in 2020.

In its seventh report devoted to the effects of the pandemic on the business world, the United Nations (UN) said that in 2020, around 8.8 percent of global working hours were lost last year due to the coronavirus, which is four times the number lost in the 2009 financial crisis.

“These massive losses resulted in an 8.3 percent decline in global labor income (before support measures are included), equivalent to USD 3.7 trillion or 4.4 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP),” the report said.

The ILO director-general, Guy Ryder said “This has been the most severe crisis for the world of work since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009.”

“I am pleased to say that there is some relatively good news in all of this, that we do see tentative signs of recovery - these signs are fragile, they are uncertain and the prospects are notably uneven.” 

He added that 71 percent of the job losses came in the form of inactivity, stressing that this is “particularly concerning."

“These people have simply dropped out of the labor market. Either they are unable to work, perhaps because of pandemic restrictions, or social obligations or they have given up looking for work,” he added.

“All scenarios project that working hour losses will continue, in other words the financial and social distress for millions of people will continue through 2021 and beyond that,” Ryder said.