FALLOUT from the Covid-19 pandemic has created an “unparalleled” labour market crisis that will last years, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports.

Its World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2021 study, published on Wednesday, says that the crisis-induced “jobs gap” will reach 75 million in 2021 and that global unemployment will be 205 million in 2022, nearly 20 million above pre-pandemic levels.

The pandemic has also made pre-existing inequalities worse by hitting vulnerable workers harder, the report finds. The widespread lack of social protection — for example among the world’s two billion insecure workers — means that pandemic-related work disruptions have had catastrophic consequences for family incomes and livelihoods.

The UN agency said that “all countries have suffered a sharp deterioration in employment and national income, which has aggravated existing inequalities and risks inflicting longer-term ‘scarring’ effects on workers and enterprises.”

During 2020, an estimated 8.8 per cent of total working hours were lost — “the equivalent of the hours worked in one year by 255 million full-time workers,” the ILO said.

“Recovery from Covid-19 is not just a health issue,” said the agency’s director, Guy Ryder. “The serious damage to economies and societies needs to be overcome too.”

Without accelerated efforts to create decent jobs and support for the world’s most vulnerable people and 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,” Ryder said.