BERLIN (Reuters). – In 2021, the pandemic-induced reduction in work hours would be equal to 125 million jobs full-time, said the International Labour Organization on Wednesday. This was a clear indication that the global labour markets are not recovering in the way it had been expected.

This number is 25 millions higher than the ILO’s June prediction. It was mainly due to the differences in vaccination rollouts between richer and poorer countries.

According to the ILO, global hours of work will fall by 4.3% compared with pre-pandemic levels.

But, this figure can be calculated using countries’ income levels. Rich countries experienced a loss of 3.6%, while poorer countries suffered a loss of 5.7%.

According to the ILO, economic stimulus packages are also responsible for disparities among countries.

According to the ILO, low-income countries would be able to make up this gap in just over 25% if they had more equitable access vaccines.

ILO stated that the increase in vaccine rollouts had somewhat softened losses in the second quarter. It had forecast a loss at 6%. This was only 1.2 percentage point more than what it actually achieved.

In order to assess how the coronavirus epidemic has affected global labour markets, the ILO employs hours rather than the unemployment rate. This is because of differences in definitions of work within different countries.