GENEVA/WASHINGTON: Global job losses from the coronavirus crisis could far exceed the 25 million estimated just days ago, UN officials said on Thursday, as US jobless claims surged to record levels, starkly showing the scale of the economic disaster.
The International Labour Organisation, a UN agency, had estimated a week ago that, based on different scenarios for the impact of the pandemic on growth, the global ranks of the jobless would rise by between 5.3 million and 24.7 million.
However Sangheon Lee, director of the ILO’s employment policy department, told Reuters in Geneva on Thursday that the scale of temporary unemployment, lay-offs and the number of unemployment benefit claims were far higher than first expected.
“We are trying to factor the temporary massive shock into our estimate modelling. The magnitude of fluctuation is much bigger than expected,” he said.
“The projection will be much bigger, far higher than the 25 million we estimated.”
By comparison, the 2008/9 global financial crisis increased global unemployment by 22 million.
In the United States, where, as in many parts of the world, measures to contain the pandemic have brought the country to a sudden halt, the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits surged to more than three million last week.
That shattered the previous record of 695,000 set in 1982. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims would rise to one million, though estimates were as high as four million.
The data added to an alarming scenario spelled out by James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, who warned that up to 46 million people in the country – nearly a third of US workers – could lose their jobs in the short term. – March 27, 2020, Reuters
