A global survey undertaken by the ILO, with more than 13,000 respondents in 112 countries, found that more than one-in-six of those between 18 and 29 who were in work in February, when COVID-19 began to hit, have now lost their jobs.

International experts stressed the central role played by the PES providing targeted and tailor made services to those workers and unemployed people most defenseless in face of the economic crisis generated by COVID-19 pandemic. The experts introduced the wide range of country responses for addressing the labour market and employment crisis, especially in terms of service delivered to vulnerable groups, such as youth, women, people with disabilities and informal workers.

On one hand, PES have been very active supporting employment retention schemes. As the European countries experience shows, PES supported short-time working arrangements, partial unemployment benefits and other time-bound support for enterprises, such as wage subsidies. Employment retention schemes were further facilitated by other working arrangements implemented by the enterprises; good examples were the provisions of paid leaves, working from home where possible, part-time and flexible working time arrangements with negotiated safeguards for reduced hours.

On the other hand, for workers that had already lost their jobs, the PES implemented more flexibles regulations for accessing the unemployment benefits and active labour market programs; giving priority to training modalities aiming to develop or upgrade skills of unemployed people. Well-coordinated government responses enhanced the coordination between social protection schemes providing rapid income support response with employment support and retraining programs.

The presentations were followed by Q&A session.

The event was organized in the framework of the project “Partnerships for Youth Employment in the CIS” being implemented in partnership with the Russian company LUKOIL.