Nearly half of global workforce at risk of losing livelihoods due to COVID: ILO

Almost 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy, nearly half of the global workforce, face an immediate danger of losing their livelihoods due to the continued sharp decline in working hours because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the International Labour Organization has said.

More than 430 million enterprises in hard-hit sectors such as retail and manufacturing risk "serious disruption", the UN agency added.

The findings appear in the ILO Monitor third edition: COVID-19 and the world of work, released Wednesday.

Globally, there are some 3.3 billion workers. Two billion have jobs in the informal economy, the most vulnerable workers in the labour market.

The agency said 1.6 billion in the informal economy "have suffered massive damage to their capacity to earn a living" as a result of the economic meltdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Due to lockdowns or because they work in hard-hit sectors, these workers globally have seen a 60 per cent drop in income during the first month of the crisis, according to ILO estimates.

This translates into a more than 80 per cent decline in Africa and the Americas, 70 per cent in Europe and Central Asia, and 21.6 per cent in Asia and the Pacific, the ILO said.

ILO Director General Guy Ryder said as the pandemic and the jobs crisis evolve, the need to protect the world's most vulnerable workers becomes even more urgent.

"For millions of workers, no income means no food, no security and no future. Millions of businesses around the world are barely breathing. They have no savings or access to credit," he said.

"These are the real faces of the world of work. If we don't help them now, they will simply perish."