After some recovery in the second half of 2021, the world job market is suffering again and in 2022 the unemployment crisis is getting stronger. In the case of Brazil, the pace of recovery recorded at the end of 2021 showed signs of losing momentum. Inflation and shock in the Chinese market put heavy pressure on the industry in Brazil and the rest of Latin America.
Data released this Monday by the ILO (International Labor Organization) reveal that multiple global crises have caused a sharp deterioration in the recovery of the global labor market, with growing inequalities within and between countries.
According to the ILO, after significant gains in the last quarter of 2021, the number of hours worked globally fell in the first quarter of 2022. The rate remained 3.8% below the pre-pandemic level. That is the fourth quarter of 2019. That’s the equivalent of 112 million full-time job vacancies.
“The recovery in the global labor market has reversed. An uneven and fragile recovery has been made more uncertain by a series of crises,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.
“The impact on workers and their families, especially in the developing world, will be devastating and could turn into social and political upheaval,” he said.
The figures released on Monday represent a significant drop from the figures released by the ILO in January 2022. At that time, the deficit in full-time jobs was 70 million. In the second quarter of the year, the deficit will continue to widen and reach 123 million jobs.
Brazilian recovery fades
In the case of Brazil, the ILO highlights that the job creation trend at the end of 2021 is showing signs of weakening. In the last quarter of 2021, the number of hours worked in the country was 1.7% above the level that existed when the pandemic began in March 2020. The quarter was the first to show positive numbers that would be equivalent to 1. 29 million jobs.
In the first quarter of 2022, the result continues to be positive. What is striking, however, is that it marks a marginal reversal of the trend. The number of hours worked was equivalent to 1.16 million jobs, 1.6% above pre-pandemic levels, below the rate at the end of 2021, according to the ILO.
The rate is much better than the 27% drop in the second quarter of 2020, which posted a 20 million job gap. As the months passed, the dramatic situation subsided. But for the first time, the trend changed direction.
For the ILO, two factors weighed heavily on the consequences for Brazil and Latin America. One was the return of quarantine in Chinese cities, which once again affected trade and supply networks. A second effect was inflation, which threatened the labor market recovery. The business predicts that 2022 will be “difficult” for Latin America and the recovery of recent months could be undone.
In the rest of the world, the scenario is not positive either. “Multiple new and interconnected global crises, including inflation exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, financial turmoil, debt and global supply chain disruption mean there is a wider impact as well as the risk of further disruption to working hours in 2022. ILO warned of global labor markets in the coming months.
According to the ILO, Russian aggression against Ukraine is already affecting labor and other markets in Ukraine.
“Rising food and commodity prices, driven by production and trade cuts exacerbated by the Ukrainian crisis, are seriously hurting poor households and small businesses, particularly those in the informal economy,” the ILO said.
The report also found that the large and growing disparity between richer and poorer economies continues to characterize the recovery. While high-income countries recovered in hours worked, low- and low-middle-income economies regressed by 3.6% and 5.7%, respectively, in the first quarter of the year compared to pre-pandemic conditions. . “These divergent trends are likely to worsen in the second quarter of 2022,” he said.
In some developing countries, governments are increasingly constrained by a lack of fiscal space and debt sustainability challenges as businesses face economic and financial uncertainties and workers continue to lack adequate access to social protection.
Income not yet recovered
More than two years after the start of the pandemic, workers continue to suffer from the effects of the crisis, according to the ILO.
“For most workers, income from work has not yet recovered. In 2021, three in five workers lived in countries where income from work did not return to the level seen in the fourth quarter of 2019,” the organization said.
The difference between men and women has also deepened. In the first quarter of 2022, the global gender gap in hours worked was 0.7 percentage points higher than the pre-crisis baseline in 2019, where there was already a large gender gap.
“Women working in informal jobs were most affected. In terms of income groups, low- and middle-income countries saw the biggest increase in the gender gap,” she said.
source: Noticias
