Authors: Girum Abebe and Christina Wieser Beyond public health concerns and chilling epidemiological outcomes, the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been unprecedented. According to the World Bank, for example, Africa will likely face recession for the first time in 25 years and the ILO estimates that . A sharp drop in…
Photo credit: Victor Idrogo / World Bank Authors: David Newhouse and Michael Weber The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought havoc on economies and workers worldwide — but the impacts are difficult to quantify, because the pandemic has made traditional face-to-face data collection impossible in most places. The World Bank projects that These projections, however, are…
Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank Authors: Sırma Demir Şeker, Efşan Nas Özen, and Ayşenur Acar Erdoğan COVID-19 has brought existing economic vulnerabilities into view globally. Turkey is no exception as the Turkish labor market already has significant challenges: exchange rate depreciation and inflation, low female labor force participation, high youth unemployment, and…
Authors: Michael Weber, Amparo Palacios-Lopez and Ivette Contreras-González The first wave of empirical results from rapid phone surveys in Sub Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda) confirm the devastating labor market impacts of the pandemic. But they also show that the jobs impacts are heterogeneous, with particularly severe impacts on the urban informal…
Photo credit: World Bank / Sambrian Mbaabu Author: Piotr Lewandowski The COVID-19 pandemic created a dual challenge of containing the spread of the virus, and preserving jobs and livelihoods as countries all over the world adopted restrictions in economic activity and mobility of people. At the Jobs and Development Conference 2020, we convened a special…
Author: Kunal Sen Seven months into the unprecedented crisis of COVID-19, we already see significant effects on employment and earnings worldwide. The fallout of #COVID19 could see poverty rise for the first time in over two decades — up to half a billion people could fall into global poverty in developing countries Share on X –…
Photo by Courtney Hall on Unsplash Authors: Mauro Testaverde and Gordon Betcherman The COVID-19 pandemic has affected labor markets everywhere. In some countries, like the US and Canada, unemployment skyrocketed to levels not seen in living memory. In others, including several in Europe, things have looked very different, with few layoffs and workers often remaining attached to their…
Photo credit: Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels Authors: Amanina Abdur Rahman, Achim Schmillen, and Alyssa Farha Jasmin The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a jobs crisis in developing countries in East Asia. The International Labour Organization estimates that in the second quarter of 2020 working hours across East Asia will decline by around 8.4 percent…
People take precautions in Mali against COVID-19 (coronavirus). Photo credit: Ousmnane Traore/World Bank Authors: Puja Vasudeva Dutta, Colin Andrews, Aude de Montesquiou, Timothy Clay, and Sarang Chaudhary This blog post is based on the forthcoming Partnership for Economic Inclusion Policy Note Series: Economic Inclusion for the Poorest & COVID-19: Adaptation and Early Priorities for Medium-…
Governments of developing countries should consider WFH as a crucial part of the new digital economy when they invest in broadband infrastructure. Photo credit: World Bank Authors: Maho Hatayama, Mariana Viollaz, and Hernan Winkler The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis and implementation of social distancing policies around the world has raised the question of how many jobs…