Still rejoiced by the data on registered unemployment for May (less unemployment, more affiliation to Social Security), the deep trends that the murderous pandemic is leaving in the job market should not be ignored. After the most dramatic moments, the post-battle passage is one of “unprecedented disruption throughout the world”, with devastating repercussions on public health, employment and livelihoods. Says the International Labor Organization (ILO) in your last reportAll countries, albeit unevenly, have suffered a pronounced decline in employment and income, which has accentuated inequalities and now runs the risk of lasting damage to workers and businesses.
Let us choose three fields of play: that of the black economy, that of poverty and that of the situation of young people. Let’s recall the most brutal data: approximately 2 billion workers, more than 60% of the world workforce, belonged to the black economy in 2019, that is, before the start of the coronavirus. This is equivalent to 2 billion workers without social protection. Due to their status as informal wage earners, it is unlikely that they could have benefited directly from the social spending that has been made available to the losers of the crisis. Furthermore, as the savings rate for this group is lower than the average, they have been more prone to falling further into poverty.
According to the ILO, the world has lost five years of progress towards the eradication of working poverty, as it has reached rates equivalent to those of 2015. The total loss of working hours has translated into a sharp drop in income (8.3% less in 2020, and 5.1% in 2021) and more than 100 million workers have joined this army of poor people who live on less than $ 3.20 a day.
Young people, as a group, have already started the pandemic with a very dire situation in their living conditions. The virtuous circle that said, with personal effort, strengthening the institutions of democracy and global economic progress, had been broken, well-being would improve and children would live better than parents. Covid has in many cases interrupted the transition of young people from school or university to work and data from previous crises indicate that entry into the labor market during a recession reduces long-term employment opportunities, wages and salaries. prospects for the development of competencies at work. This is because there are fewer jobs available, and also because young people who do find a job are hired in temporary positions at least until business confidence is restored. The proportion of young people who did not have a job, education or training has increased in this crisis in 24 of the 33 countries for which data are available. The multilateral body insists that the pandemic has seriously disrupted educational opportunities, especially in areas of the world that lack digital infrastructure and the ability to move to distance learning.
It is in these great disruptions that a new social contract is needed. This kind of agreement between the members of a certain group (in this case, the whole of humanity) has to define both their rights and their duties, which are the clauses of such a contract. These clauses are not immutable or natural, but they change depending on each historical moment and on the correlations of force between the members of the group.
Look if the ILO is concerned that this tripartite UN agency, which brings together governments, employers and workers from almost 190 countries, does not rule out that measures to alleviate this dramatic situation should include “relief” or “restructuring ” Of the debt. Taboo, taboo.
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