Unemployment threatens world workers in the coming months, as COVID-19 continues

New York – dpa: The global economy enters the last quarter of its worst year in the living memory of human beings, and it faces great risks, in light of the continuing pandemic of the new Corona virus to inflict more damage on labor markets.
According to estimates by Bloomberg News analysts, the bleak outlook for the US job market, the suspension of the wage subsidy program in Britain, and the end of the moratorium on declaring bankruptcy of troubled companies in Germany provide a darker picture of the future of the labor market in the world.
According to estimates by the International Labor Organization, the world will lose working hours equivalent to about 245 million permanent jobs during the last quarter of this year.
The last quarter of the current year began with an ominous warning, as many major companies from the American “Walt Disney” for media and entertainment, to the English-Dutch “Royal Dutch Shell” for energy and the German “Continental” for auto components, announced last Thursday that thousands of jobs will be cut during Only 24 hours.
The next day, the US Labor Department revealed that job growth in the United States had slowed over the past month, as more Americans gave up their job search.
In addition to this worrying news, the main program to support wages with British companies will end later this month, while one of the main business organizations there said that it expects to write off more than 60,000 jobs in the coming weeks as this program ends.
At the same time, the renewed rise in the number of people infected with the Coronavirus in major economies indicates the weakness of the condition of these economies, which have not yet recovered from the losses of the first wave of the pandemic.
The recent outbreak of the virus in the French capital, Paris, for example, yesterday led to the announcement of the reopening of bars for a period of two weeks, starting today, Tuesday. It could lead to restaurants being closed. The same situation is being repeated in London, according to local health officials.
Tim Aurelick, chief economist at Bloomberg News, says that the occurrence of a new wave of the Corona pandemic, mass job cuts in major American companies, and the end of the wage subsidy program in Britain, confirm the risk of high unemployment rates in the world at the end of this year.
The aforementioned developments represent bad news in the medium term, with heightened fears that the economic recovery will falter as a result of deteriorating conditions in world markets, even after the discovery of an emerging anti-corona virus vaccine.
On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve published the minutes of the last meeting of the Open Market Committee on the Management of Monetary Policy, where it referred to the details of discussions about the new committee’s directives regarding the conditions that would make it necessary to start increasing the US interest rate close to zero percent. Currently. The minutes also indicated that US monetary policy makers discussed the idea of ​​increasing bond purchases to inject more cash into the US economy, as well as continuing strict restrictions on cash distributions to banks.
All eyes are on the Asia-Pacific region to monitor indicators of future economic developments, as the Central Bank of Australia will announce today, Tuesday, its decision on interest rates, while Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce a new economic stimulus package that includes spending on infrastructure projects and tax cuts aimed at extracting the Australian economy. From its first recession in nearly 30 years.
Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor of the Bank of Japan, plans to address a conference next week, where he will address indicators of economic recovery and price expectations.
Markets are also awaiting the statements of European Central Bank officials, including Bank President Christine Lagarde and chief economist Philip Lane, during the current week, as it will be an opportunity to monitor any indications of whether the recent disappointing inflation data for the euro area will be sufficient to reinforce calls for the launch of a new package of Economic stimulus measures.
Investors are awaiting statements by officials from the Bank of England, the central bank, to see if there is an intention to reduce interest rates to less than zero percent. The same thing is repeated for northern European countries, especially after Norwegian Central Bank Governor Austin Olsen surprised the markets with more pessimistic statements than expectations last month.