Nearly half of young people have lost income due to the crisis, UN study finds
Some 42% of young people around the world, who were still working during the pandemic, have seen a drop in income as a result of the coronavirus crisis, a study by the United Nations’ labor body has found.
Drew Gardiner, youth employment specialist for the UN’s International Labour Organization, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday that young people were in a “disadvantaged position” in the labor market even before the pandemic hit.
This is partly because young people were more likely to work in sectors highly affected by the pandemic and the associated lockdowns, the report highlighted.
So these “existing vulnerabilities,” Gardiner said, meant that one in six young people had stopped working since the onset of the pandemic.
This was a finding the ILO reported in one of its previous reports on the labor market, when it warned that the multiple shocks of the pandemic on young people could result in a “lockdown generation.”
The ILO’s latest “Youth & Covid-19” survey, published Tuesday, collected responses from over 11,000 people, aged 18-29, from 112 countries between April and May 2020. It surmised that the impact of the coronavirus crisis on young people was “systematic, deep and disproportionate.”
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