By Emma Farge

GENEVA, (Reuters) – The recovery of the global employment market is likely to take longer than expected. Because of uncertainty over the course and duration the pandemic, unemployment will remain at or above levels pre-COVID-19 until 2023, according to the International Labour Organization in a Monday report.

According to the U.N. agency, there will be 52 million less jobs by 2022 than pre-COVID levels. This is about twice its original estimate for June 2021.

The disruptions are expected to persist into 2023 even though there will be approximately 27 million fewer jobs. It also warned about a slow and uncertain recovery, in its World Employment and Social Outlook report (2022).

According to the report, “The outlook on the global labor market has changed since ILO’s last projections. It is unlikely that a return of pre-pandemic performance for most countries will be possible in the future.”

Guy Ryder, Director General, told journalists there were many factors that led to the revision. He said the primary one was the ongoing pandemic, and all its variations, including Omicron.

In 2022, there will be around 207million people without jobs. The report stated that this would have a significant impact on the economy as many have already left the workforce and are yet to come back.

Nevertheless, this year’s projected shortfall in work hours is a significant improvement on the previous two years. The ILO estimated that there would be 125 million less jobs in 2021 than the pre-pandemic level, and 258 million fewer in 2020.