World faces 'lockdown generation' as one-sixth of young workers lose jobs

Even those under-30s who are still in work have lost almost one-quarter of their hours, according to the International Labour Organisation

Coronavirus unemployment
One-in-six young workers globally has lost their job, the ILO said Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty 

More than one in six young people worldwide have lost their jobs due to the havoc wreaked by coronavirus - raising fears of a “lockdown generation” whose financial prospects are blighted for decades to come.

Under-30s have been hit particularly hard as the outbreak ravaged jobs in industries such as hospitality and insecure work in the so-called gig economy, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) warned. Young women are expected to have lost out the most.

Even those still in employment have suffered an average cut to their hours of almost one-quarter, hammering millions more workers' earnings and quality of life.

The figures highlight the scale of the sacrifice young people have been forced to make to stop a disease which affects the elderly worst.

In England, hospital death statistics show more than 13,700 of coronavirus fatalities were older than 80 - over half the total NHS death toll - while just 2,224 or 8.5pc were aged under 40.

Guy Ryder, the ILO’s director general, said: “As we recover from the pandemic, a lot of young people are simply going to be left behind, in big numbers.

"The danger is that this initial shock to young people will last a decade or longer.

“It will affect the trajectory of young working people throughout their working lives. It will be people who will be permanently scarred by the immediate effects of the pandemic.”

Lessons from past recessions suggest that young workers who are laid off or fail to get a first job will suffer financially and in terms of their health for the rest of their lives.

Around half of young students told the ILO that their education has been disrupted. One in 10 now fear they will never finish their courses.

Mr Ryder said: “Labour market entrants in times of recession always have a hard time - it is horrible, horrible conditions out there.

"That obstacle to entry or mobility is probably going to be higher than we can ever remember.

“Young people who are out of the labour market for whatever reason for a significant period of time at the beginning of their careers bear the scars throughout their professional careers.”

Women are often hardest hit, he added.

Mr Ryder said: "Pre-pandemic, women were disadvantaged on just about every indicator you can look at in the labour market, and that applies particularly strongly to young women.

"We have seen multiple impacts in the course of the pandemic - women are particularly affected by the loss of hours, and we are also seeing because of the nature of this crisis a particular emphasis on care in our societies and the care economy."

Mr Ryder praised the UK’s furlough scheme for helping keep workers in touch with jobs, and said it needs to be followed up with extra training and jobs help, particularly for the young.

However he noted that furlough schemes and other support packages around the world are not cheap and there is a growing risk of a political backlash as difficult choices are made after the pandemic is over.

The average eurozone country's debt is likely to rise above 100pc of GDP, Mr Ryder said - far higher than the 90pc threshold previously seen as unsustainable. Youth unemployment in the bloc has never fully recovered from the last recession, and stood at 15.8pc in March before disaster fully struck.

Mr Ryder said: “We will come out of this pandemic with a world which has higher unemployment, higher inequality, higher poverty, higher debt, and probably higher levels of political frustration. That is a pretty volatile cocktail with which to begin the job of planning the recovery.

“When we start counting the cost in terms of debt, some pretty sharp questions will be posed at that point.

"Are we going to change our stance and live with higher levels of debt, or try to reduce them to what were familiarly considered acceptable and sustainable levels?”

Overall the number of hours worked around the world has plunged more than 10pc since the end of 2019 - the equivalent loss of more than 300 million full-time jobs, the ILO estimates. The Americas are currently expected to be the hardest-hit region of the world, with almost 40 million jobs lost in the US alone.

The ILO has found evidence that effective tracing of people infected during an outbreak can slash the damage to the jobs market by roughly 50pc.

It raises hopes that a tracking scheme in the UK could help the economy to recover more quickly.

Analysts suspect this is because contact tracing reduces the length of lockdowns, boosts confidence among workers, businesses and customers, and makes it easier to manage disruption as workplaces reopen.

Germany and South Korea have done particularly well, and the ILO urged other countries to follow suit given the powerful impact on the jobs market.

Mr Ryder said: “For a relatively low cost, it is liable to yield very good economic paybacks."

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