The world fell into recession and unemployment hit a record high. In its "World Employment and Social Outlook”  report released earlier this year, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said that the COVID-19 crisis continues to cause serious job losses around the world.

The ILO has downgraded its forecast for labour market recovery in 2022, projecting a deficit in hours worked globally equivalent to 52 million full-time jobs, relative to the fourth quarter of 2019.
While this latest projection is an improvement on the situation in 2021, it remains almost two per cent below the number of global hours worked pre-pandemic, according to the ILO World Employment and Social Outlook. Global unemployment is expected to remain above pre-COVID-19 levels until at least 2023.

The ILO’s report also cautioned that the overall impact on employment is significantly greater than represented in these figures because many people have left the labour force. The report warned of the stark differences in the impact the crisis is having across groups of workers and countries. Therefore, the "need to do" of the governments is not only to fight the epidemic and restore the economy, but also to spend an appropriate budget to ensure social security for workers, to help them reintegrate into the labor market soon.