‘Covid saps 81 million jobs in Asia-Pacific’

Bloomberg

The economic blow from coronavirus has wiped out 81 million jobs across Asia-Pacific this
year, with women and young people disproportionately affected, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).
“Covid-19 has inflicted a
hammer-blow on the region’s labour markets,” Chihoko Asada Miyakawa, the group’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement. “Low levels of social security coverage and limited institutional capacity in many countries have made it difficult to help enterprises and workers back on their feet.”
Employment in Asia-Pacific showed a 4.2% decline compared with the pre-crisis trend, with the gap at 4.6% for women and 4% for men, the ILO said in a report.