NUMBER OF AFFECTED WORKERS DUE TO COVID-19 AROUND THE WORLD

The coronavirus pandemic struck the world not that long ago, and it is rapidly changing life as we know it in virtually every country in the world. It has affected virtually every segment of our societies, whether that be politics, business, news media, sports, the entertainment industry in general, and so on. With the numbers regarding affected people on the rise, governments have stepped in with a wide array of measurements to combat the further spreading of the virus, given that no known cure is yet available for COVID-19. The virus and its effects on people’s health, coupled with the different sorts of measures governments have introduced in societies, has drastically changed the ways people live, interact, plan and go about their daily lives. That being said, one segment of the social way of living that has been disrupted and that has huge consequences for the lives of many, and which has therefore garnered large media attention, is the business sector. Private-sector workers are particularly at risk due to the implications of a global lockdown on the tourism sector, the services sector and retail industries. This has resulted in massive number of people being laid back or furloughed due to the slowing down, if not total freezing of many economies. This is highly relevant as the effects on the system that this implies are pretty dramatic, or put in lay man’s terms, people’s incomes will completely disappear or will be cut to half right when we are in times when they will need them the most. This then obviously will lead to different kinds of problems for states as they go on in trying to stabilize the economy, and furthermore the total of society as well.

One example is Norway, a country with a population of 5.368 million, has seen more than 185,000 people applying for financial aid, out of which more than 100,000 are unemployed, and the numbers have been on the rise. According to another estimate, 1.5 million jobs are already affected by the crisis, that is ¾ of the private sector workforce, which means that the economy, more or less, has been paralyzed.  This is despite the fact that there have been just over 5 thousand affected people that have been officially diagnosed in Norway.

In Spain, 834,000 jobs have been lost just in March, and with the crisis widening, this number could soon increase many times more. This number has been recorded despite the fact that during the first twelve days of March, only 2,857 workers filled for unemployment. And this is mind boggling. This leads us to the conclusion that: if governments do not react swiftly, things are threatening to get even worse, as the number of companies disappearing from the market continues to increase dramatically. Many thousands of small and medium enterprises that have been locked down will not be able to recover and open store once again because they are literally drowning.

If we take the biggest economy in the world, that of the United States of America, and take into account the fact that it is probably the most developed economy in the world, meaning it should also in theory be the most resilient in the world and be able to adjust swiftly to shocks, it has seen over 10 million workers filing for unemployment just in March. This obviously does not include the number of workers that have been forced to take pay cuts, or sent out on forced leaves, or that have been furloughed indefinitely, which would see the number increase well over 10 million. Now if this does not sound terrifying enough, what can we think about the future when we look at the pace at which the coronavirus has been spreading in the USA? There have been some numbers which have been put forward as a sort of an estimate of the total number of workers likely to be rendered unemployed during the coronavirus, and one of those numbers is the number 47.05 million.

Now this number speaks for itself. One could only imagine about the consequences that could arise from such a large mass of unemployed, and one could certainly also think about the implications this will have for that particular society.

Another example is Germany. The expectation in Germany is that unemployment in Europe’s largest economy is going to rise sharply due to the coronavirus crisis, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of companies have applied for their employees to join a government-subsidised short-term work programme designed to avoid lay-offs. The intention behind this work programme is to prevent a big spike in unemployment through an expansion of the “Kurzarbeit” or short-time work scheme, under which firms impacted by the crisis can send their workers home, or reduce their hours, and the state will compensate for a large part of the lost income. According to official statistics, 470,000 companies had applied for support under the scheme in the last two and a half weeks of March—a record monthly increase. That being said, the next issue of unemployment statistics in April are likely to show an increase in unemployment of 150,000 to 200,000 people, and it is important to note that many of the fired workers were in the hospitality and tourism sectors.

The employment agency of the Federal Republic of Germany stated that by March 25th, it had received and processed applications from 55,000 companies for approximately 1.04 million of their staff to join the Kurzarbeit scheme. Germany’s unemployment could rise from 90,000 to 2.356 million in 2020 if the disruptions brought about by the coronavirus epidemic are mild, but the number of people who have been rendered unemployed could top 3 million if the crisis is more severe, the IAB labor market research institute said.

All in all, the aforementioned numbers speak for themselves about the impact this crisis has been having on the world so far. Restrictions have been put into place in many countries to slow down the spreading of the virus, but these too have taken their tool on societies by effectively restricting many of the ordinary activities people had been having on a daily basis prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus. People must be reasonable and have understanding for the severity of the situation, and they must comply with the official decisions of their government if we are to contain the spreading of the virus. They should follow all guidelines issued by the respective authorities and international organizations in order to help slow down the spreading of the virus. 

Everyone must contribute to help authorities easily handle the situation and mitigate the negative effects, it is the only way to restoring things back to normal and to successfully creating the conditions upon which the road to economic recovery can be built.