PremiumWith infections rising as the more contagious delta variant of Covid spreads, many parts of Southeast Asia have reimposed movement curbs that hamper consumer-reliant economies
A spike in Covid-19 cases and a slow pace of vaccinations may lead to a prolonged labour-market crisis and hamper Southeast Asia's recovery, said the International Labour Organization (ILO) in a policy brief.
As per ILO, around 9.3 million lesser people than general will be employed in Southeast Asia this year, as compared to the pre-pandemic trend. The employment gap compares with the 10.6 million shortfalls estimated in 2020, with the difference expected to narrow to 4.1 million next year, the group said.
“The crisis has laid bare the vulnerabilities of the economies and labor markets in the region," Chihoko Asada-Miyakawa, the ILO’s assistant director-general, said in a statement. Policies are needed to boost the resilience of enterprises, workers and households, she said.
With infections rising as the more contagious delta variant of Covid spreads, many parts of Southeast Asia have reimposed movement curbs that hamper consumer-reliant economies. Lockdowns have devastated businesses and dealt a setback to the region’s middle class.
Total working hours in the region this year will be 7.4% below pre-pandemic levels, only slightly better than last year, when they were 8.4% below the pre-pandemic baseline, according to the ILO. However, it warned the projections are subject to a “high level of uncertainty" given the rapidly changing situation.
The impact of the pandemic is “unprecedented," the ILO said. Until now employment had always risen in Southeast Asia, even during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis in 2008, it said.
Covid situation in India
The country saw a single-day rise of 38,667 coronavirus infections, taking the total tally of cases to 3,21,56,493, while the death toll rose to 4,30,732 with 478 fresh fatalities, according to the Union health ministry data updated Saturday.
The ministry said the country has now reported less than 50,000 daily new cases for 48 consecutive days.
The active cases have increased to 3,87,673 (1.21% of the total infections), while the recovery rate was recorded at 97.45%, the data updated at 8 am showed.
An increase of 2,446 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours, it showed.
Also, 22,29,798 Covid-19 tests were conducted Friday, taking the cumulative number of tests conducted so far for the detection of coronavirus in the country to 49,17,00,577, while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.73%. It has been less than 3% for the last 19 days.
The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.05%.
Current situation in Southeast Asia
According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the Covid-19 death rate has been seeing new highs in multiple Southeast Asian countries since July 2021, with also a surge in case numbers over the past month.
And with the recent emergence of the Delta variant, which may have increased transmissibility, the number of new Covid-19 cases has increased. This has led to a reimplementation of lockdown measures.
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