Pandemic is said to have cost 34 million jobs in Latin America

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Protests in Lima: Hardly any country has been hit as hard by the corona crisis as Peru

Photo: ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP

Millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean lost their jobs because of the corona pandemic in the first half of 2020.

34 million jobs are said to have been lost in the region.

This is the conclusion of a report that the International Labor Organization (ILO) presented in the Peruvian capital Lima.

This is based on data from nine countries, which together make up more than 80 percent of the region's total population.

The UN organization warned of an unprecedented crisis in the labor markets and "a drastic shrinkage of employment, working hours and income."

According to this report, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region of the world with the largest percentage decline in working hours and income.

The employment rate - the share of the workforce in the population - fell to a "historic low" of 51.1 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Compared to the first half of the previous year, this is a decrease of 5.4 percentage points in the region with around 600 million inhabitants.

Pandemic has exacerbated inequalities

Some of the job losses are temporary.

Initial information from the third quarter also indicated a recovery.

However, the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities and structural problems.

The ILO said that this could continue in a recovery.

"The formal work deficit will become even more apparent for certain work groups such as young people, women and adults with lower qualifications."

Some of the countries that have suffered most from the corona crisis so far are in Latin America.

Brazil and Mexico are among the four countries with the highest number of deaths.

The nine countries with the most infections with the Sars-CoV-2 virus include Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Mexico.

In Argentina, the once rich country, 40.9 percent of the people now live below the poverty line, as the statistics agency announced.

That is 5.5 percentage points more than in the first half of last year.

Accordingly, 10.5 percent of people live in extreme poverty - 2.8 percentage points more than in the same period a year earlier.

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bam / dpa