New estimates released by the International Labour Organisation reveals that about 115,000 Fijian workers have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

New estimates released by the International Labour Organisation reveals that about 115,000 Fijian workers have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ILO’s COVID-19 impact assessment on employment and businesses say these workers are either on leave without pay, unemployed or working on reduced hours.

Director for Pacific Island Countries, Matin Karimli says they’ve shared these findings with Government through the United Nations.

“When we will look at the figures of the survey in Fiji initially we see that the employers and employees surveyed demonstrates that there are about 115,000 workers affected by the pandemic in Fiji. 60% of these workers have transited to different forms of employment. It creates additional problems because as people transit to different forms of employment it also increases the number of informal workers in the Fijian economy.”

The Director adds many Fijian businesses are also struggling to stay afloat. Many are now diversifying their operations.

“They report difficultly of cash flow. Some enterprises they report that they have cash flow only for six months but some small micro businesses report that they have cash flow only for three months. We do understand that government has put in place several measures to support the workers and the enterprises in forms of unemployment benefits and concessional loans.”

Karimli says the assessment reveals that the consequences of the pandemic on the workforce are serious not just for Fiji but for rest of the Asia-Pacific region.

“The ILO has released new estimates and it’s actually different from the estimates that was released earlier because before it was forecast that in the second quarter of this year there would be about three hundred and five million job losses in the world. But new figures shows that there is 14% drop in the global working hours which is equivalent to four hundred million jobs. And this figure is about 13.5 percent in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The ILO says the assessment shows a dire situation for the rest of the year as there is no clarity as to how the situation will develop in the future.