Four out of five workers around the world – that's around 2.7 billion jobs – have had their workplace fully or partly closed by the coronavirus pandemic, and many people have been furloughed or lost their jobs. Governments around the world are working to try to stem the flow of job losses, with wage replacement and other programs to help avoid unemployment and keep people in work. Click or scroll through as we look at how successful, or not, they have been.
Non-essential businesses in Japan closed during the country's state of emergency. Encouraging furloughs rather than layoffs, the government pledged to pay up to 90% of wages for struggling businesses. Manufacturers including Toyota and Mitsubishi are among those furloughing workers. This has softened the blow of rising unemployment seen elsewhere, reducing the 67.4 million-person workforce at the start of the year by less than 0.01% in March, with just 60,000 jobs lost. However, the country's unemployment rate is expected to rise from 0.5% to 2.8%.
The Mexican Labour Ministry reported nearly 350,000 formal jobs lost during March, with Caribbean coastal regions especially affected as hotels closed in tourist hotspots such as Cancún and Playa del Carmen. This though only represents 0.06% of Mexico’s 55.5 million people employed at the end of 2019. However, the economic effects of the pandemic could move another nine million people into poverty in time. The unemployment rate of around 3.4% remains currently unchanged, but is expected to grow significantly later this year.
In Finland cafés and bars will reopen at reduced capacities in June, as lockdown gradually comes to an end. For many of the 281,400 temporarily laid-off workers this may mean going back to work. Finnish employment law allows furloughed employees to receive unemployment benefits, which are based on income. Along with restaurants and retail businesses, major employers Finnair and Nokia have also furloughed staff. However, 4,900 jobs have been permanently lost, the equivalent of 0.2% of the 2.6-million-strong workforce. The country's unemployment rate remains around 7%.
While many eagerly awaited loosened lockdown restrictions, Poland's leaders weren’t entirely ready, even delaying the presidential election on 10 May. Economic effects of the coronavirus are widespread: nearly a third of companies expect to make layoffs, and half will reduce salaries. A program started in March to pay 40% of wages for affected firms, and one-off payments of €450 (£420) to the self-employed and those on temporary contracts. However, 0.6% of the country’s 16.5 million workers had already lost their jobs. The unemployment rate was at 5.5% in February, but Labor Minister Marlena Malag predicts this will rise to at least 10% by the end of the year.
Quarantine, along with slumping oil prices, has left Colombia with many economic woes. At the start of the year 21.7 million people had jobs, with 0.6% of those now gone. Businesses can apply for subsidies to help pay wages and prevent layoffs. However, Latin America's largest airline, LATAM of Chile, has filed for bankruptcy, as has the second largest carrier in the region, Avianca, which is Colombia's largest airline with 21,000 employees. That said, the country’s lost-cost airline, Viva, said it will expand services. The 10.5% unemployment rate could nearly double in the coming months, experts warn.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has started easing lockdown and reopening the country. The relatively low job loss figures, a mere 0.6% of the country's 42.7 million jobs, is attributed to Kurzarbeit, a short-term working scheme that see firms temporarily lay off staff or reduce their hours while the government pays two-thirds of wages. Automakers like BMW and Volkswagen are among the half a million German companies using Kurzarbeit during the coronavirus. Still, Deutsche Bank estimates the 5% unemployment rate could eventually rise to 8.5%.
Local lockdown measures and a severe decline in demand for overseas exports while other countries deal with COVID-19 made layoffs unavoidable for many Chinese businesses. Samsung is reported to have laid off a third of its Chinese staff, and automakers across the country may have reopened factories but are not back to previous levels of production. China has 775 million people in its workforce, and 80 million workers have had to stop working due to the pandemic. In terms of permanent job losses, in the first two months of 2020 it was reported that five million people had been laid off, 0.6% of jobs. The urban unemployment rate peaked in February at 6.2% and this could rise further.
With the country under lockdown the Turkish government instated a three-month ban on layoffs in April, protecting the 28.3 million people in employment. This move retroactively covers workers on unpaid leave or laid off since 15 March. The government will also cover 60% of wages for companies that are affected by the pandemic. However, the opposition party says two million jobs, around 0.7% of the workforce, have already been lost during the coronavirus crisis. The country's overall unemployment rate is just under 14%.
Though the Swedish government has chosen not to enforce a lockdown, employers are still furloughing workers, with government subsidies providing 90% of those employees’ wages. Carmaker Volvo alone has furloughed its entire 20,000-person workforce. Recent numbers show 49,800 people have been temporarily laid off and another 36,800 are now permanently out of work. With 5.4 million Swedes employed in 2019 permanent job losses currently represent about 0.7% of the country's workforce, but experts say Sweden’s unemployment rate of 6.6% could reach 10% in time.
With tourism accounting for more than 20% of the economy, Greece is hoping people won't stay away this summer, and is planning to open hotels in June and international flights in July. This could be a lifeline for the working population of four million, a fifth of whom work in tourism. The government has provided a one-off grant of €800 (£717) to 1.7 million private sector workers whose jobs are temporarily suspended, and has introduced other supportive measures such as tax breaks for around 800,000 businesses. However, in the first half of March it has been reported that 41,000 Greeks lost their jobs, the equivalent of 0.8% of the country's 4.8 million workers.
With 2.7 million people working at the end of 2019 the coronavirus pandemic has cost Norway 29,300 jobs, the equivalent of 1% of the workforce. Nearly 10 times that figure, 279,300 workers, have experienced temporary layoffs. Tourism and retail have been hit the hardest, with the government paying 62% of wages for many. SAS and Norwegian airlines furloughed workers, and H&M has sent home 2,000 of its staff. The country has reopened from lockdown, but many are worried about the economic effects from the drop in oil prices during the pandemic.
With the second highest number of recorded coronavirus cases worldwide, job losses are likely to start mounting for Brazil's 94 million workers. According to President Jair Bolsonaro, who has opposed states’ decisions to implement lockdown, 10 million jobs have been lost due to coronavirus, or about 1%. However the government’s most recent data, showing nearly 13 million unemployed, only accounts for the period through to the end of March. Much more dramatic job losses are expected to be reported for April and May.
After introducing lockdown, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced a program to prevent job losses in the private sector, where an estimated 70,000 people have been furloughed. The government is covering 75% of salaried workers’ pay, with their companies picking up the other 25%, and 90% of wages for hourly workers. However, 31,200 people have been permanently laid off, meaning Denmark has currently lost around 1.1% of its 2.9-million-strong workforce due to the coronavirus. The country's unemployment rate has shifted from 3.7% to 4.1%.
South Korea did not enforce a lockdown, but employed a strategy of mass testing and social isolation. And while businesses didn't have to shut, many suffered as people stayed at home to self-isolate. The government is issuing loans to help businesses retain jobs and stay afloat, but the nation has seen job losses with the number of jobs falling by 476,000 compared to April last year as hiring stops and sectors such as hospitality and retail cut roles, according to Bloomberg. This represents 1.8% of the 26.8 million-strong workforce. And so as the country begins to reopen its unemployment rate in April is down, from 4% in January to 3.8%, although it remains to be seen if a second wave of coronavirus could change this.
Spain's strict lockdown saw the tourism and retail sectors take a hard hit this April. Some 20% of the country’s 22.7 million jobs are lost or furloughed. But unlike America, the government’s Erte scheme is paying 70% of workers’ wages. Car manufacturer Seat has furloughed 14,800 workers, Burger King Spain another 14,000, and hotelier Barcelo 6,500. However, not everyone has been spared, and there have been as many as 460,000 job losses since the start of the pandemic, the equivalent of 2% of the workforce.The total unemployment rate is expected to reach 19%.
At the end of March 17,500 people in Iceland had been temporarily laid off, while another 4,500 were permanently out of work. With only 201,000 people in employment, this is nearly 2.2% of Icelandic jobs. More than half these jobs are in tourism: tour companies and hotels, including Radisson Blu, have sent people home, while Icelandair laid off 2,000 workers. As a safety net the government is paying 75% of furloughed workers’ wages to help prevent business closures and further job losses. Iceland's unemployment rate in March was 3.3%.
Shedding nearly 300,000 jobs by April alone, around 2.3% of the 13 million people employed in Australia in January are now unemployed according to research by the Guardian Australia. The hospitality sector has lost the vast majority of jobs with restaurants and hotels closed. To help mitigate the economic damage, the government launched a program for affected businesses to pay staff AU$1,500 (US$1k/£805) each fortnight. It has also raised the partner income cap on unemployment benefits, allowing more people to apply. The country's unemployment rate is up one percentage point to 6.2%.
From 15 March the Dutch government closed all bars, restaurants, museums and other businesses. The hospitality and tourism industries have seen the most drastic job losses during the pandemic. The country's federal employment agency paid benefits to 37,800 new unemployed people in March this year, and Statistics Netherlands announced that the country had seen 283,000 job losses in that month, the equivalent of 3.6% of the 7.9-million-person workforce. However others are being paid through a government wage subsidy, and companies that lose at least 20% of their turnover can apply for up to 90% of their payroll, preventing permanent layoffs.
With four million people in employment at the start of the year, the number of people laid off or on unpaid leave accounts for nearly a quarter of the Israeli workforce, one of the highest worldwide. Aviation and tourism have taken a significant hit from lockdown measures. Around 25,000 hotel staff are laid off or on unpaid leave, and airline El Al has laid off at least 1,000 workers – a number likely to increase. According to the National Employment Service, of those seeking state support 6.3% have been laid off, and 89.8% are on unpaid leave. Just before the pandemic hit, Israel reported a record low unemployment rate of less than 4%, but this is now set to rise.
Of the UK's 27.9 million workers, a quarter are currently not working, just a little higher than in the US. At least 6.3 million people are on furlough with the government paying 80% of wages up to £2,500 ($3k) per month. Food and drink firms are large benefactors of the program with McDonald's UK furloughing 135,000 workers and major pub chains Greene King and Wetherspoons a combined 81,000. At the end of March a study by YouGov found that 5% had permanently lost their jobs, but 2.1 million people have applied for unemployment benefit, the equivalent of 7.5% of the population's workforce. Research by the Institue for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex predicts that there could be as many as 6.5 million job losses from the crisis. The UK’s low unemployment rate, currently at 3.9%, may soon increase almost six times.
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With cruise lines worldwide canceling trips the Caribbean will be especially hard hit. As a region it has lost at least a million jobs in the travel and tourism sectors alone due to the coronavirus. With around 10.8 million people employed across the region this represents a loss of 11% of jobs. The Inter-American Development Bank issued a bleak estimate that as many as 17 million jobs could be lost in the Caribbean and Latin America combined over time, depending on the mitigation measures governments may bring in.
As part of lockdown President Vladimir Putin mandated workers would have a month off, paid, during April. However, companies without the cash to cover wages made layoffs. Government forecasts expect roughly 10 million Russians will have lost their job, 14% of the 71.9 million people employed. Russia's economy is also at risk due to its reliance on selling gas and oil, which have seen prices fall dramatically. If oil prices don't recover and remain at $35 per barrel it has been estimated that the Russian economy could decline by 4-6%. Unemployment at 4.7% currently remains steady.
The lucrative ski season came to an abrupt end in Austria when resorts became coronavirus hotspots. Lockdown hit Austria's Tyrol province especially hard with unemployment up by nearly 200%, compared to 39% in the capital Vienna. The government has a Kurzarbeit – a short-term working scheme – to cover 80-90% of wages. Some 638,000 people had applied for that assistance, with the majority in the tourism, hospitality, retail and construction sectors, while 504,000 registered as unemployed, 14% of the 3.6-million-strong workforce.
Canada's 18.8-million-strong workforce has seen an unprecedented decline, with 15% of jobs affected. That's three million jobs, while another 2.5 million workers have reported working less than half their usual hours. Closing non-essential businesses as part of lockdown has affected retailers, while border closures have taken a toll on airlines, including 16,500 furloughs for Air Canada, and 6,900 jobs lost at WestJet. The government is paying 75% of wages for businesses affected by COVID-19, while the unemployment rate has more than doubled to 13% in April.
Furloughed American workers can now collect unemployment, along with those permanently laid off, as part of the country's stimulus package, and tens of millions have filed for it. Disney furloughed more than 40,000 workers, Best Buy some 50,000, and Macy’s announced most of its 125,000 staff would be sent home. Nearly 39 million Americans have lost their jobs in this global crisis, which is nearly 25% of the 157.7 million people employed in the US.
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In lockdown since March, unemployment in India has run rampant across cities while the agriculture sector, deemed essential, remains strong. Lost jobs account for around a quarter of India’s nearly 500-million-strong workforce, although more than 40% of the population is employed in agriculture. Small businesses and laborers account for 91.3 million of the layoffs, while 17.8 million are salaried and another 18.2 million are self-employed. With a record-high unemployment rate of 8.7% at the start of lockdown, it has since grown to a huge 23.5%.