In this May 21, 2021 photo, daily wage labourers and jobless people due to the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus queue-up as volunteers distribute food along a road in New Delhi. (PRAKASH SINGH / AFP)

GENEVA - The head of the International Labour Organization on Monday described the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world of work as “cataclysmic” and much worse than that of the 2008 financial crisis.

Speaking at the opening of the ILO’s two-week ministerial conference, ILO director-general Guy Ryder also warned of an uneven economic recovery after the pandemic, partly fed by inequities in vaccine distribution.

“The impact has been devastating, cataclysmic,” he said. “Taken as a whole this represents a world of work crisis four times as severe as the one triggered by the financial crisis of 2008-2009.”

The United Nations agency last week said that at least 220 million people were expected to remain unemployed globally this year and that pandemic-linked job losses would not be made up until at least 2023.

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“As we increasingly look to the recovery process with some economies growing quickly, very quickly and jobs now being created at great speed, I think we need to be conscious about just how uneven recovery will be if continues on its current trajectory,” Ryder said.