A new report entitled World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2021 by the International Labor Organization (ILO) details the devastating impact of the pandemic on workers. The organization estimates that the equivalent of 100 million full-time jobs will be lost as a result of the pandemic.
“Recovery from COVID-19 is not just a health issue. The serious damage to economies and societies needs to be overcome too. Without a deliberate effort to accelerate the creation of decent jobs, and support the most vulnerable members of society and the recovery of the hardest-hit economic sectors, the lingering effects of the pandemic could be with us for years in the form of lost human and economic potential and higher poverty and inequality” said ILO Director-General Guy Rider.
The report also projects that employment growth in the coming years will be insufficient to provide enough jobs to those who lost their jobs or left the labor force during the pandemic.
While the capitalist class have enriched themselves to an enormous degree and quickly recovered, the negative repercussions of the pandemic and crisis are pushed onto the workers. Even among the workers, the impact of the crisis is not evenly distributed between and within different countries.
The capitalist system enriches the owners of the means of production while it creates unimaginable suffering for the world’s most vulnerable workers. The great wealth of the oligarchs is proportional to the deprivation and exploitation of the mass of workers.
Source: 1