The World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2021 has warned that global unemployment will reach 205 million in 2022, surpassing the 2019 level of 187 million.

The report further stated that COVID-19-induced global unemployment in 2021 was 75 million and will reach 23 million in 2022.

"It's been 15 months since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic and it's not just been a public health crisis, it's also been an employment and a humanitarian crisis as well," said Guy Ryder, director-general of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that published the report.

It may be mentioned here that the report analyses the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the labour market across the world.

The report, moreover, also offers projections for recovery and gives details of the unequal impact of the crisis on different groups of workers and enterprises and calls for a broad-based human-centred recovery.

It may be mentioned here that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an unprecedented disruption to labour markets worldwide.

This disruption has affected the lives of the younger generation and has upset their education, especially in those regions of the world where digital infrastructure is less developed.

This unprecedented disruption has made it more difficult for them to enter the labour market and hold on to their jobs.

A report published in Down To Earth states that the COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened long-standing inequalities with many women workers dropping out of the labour force, putting at risk years of progress towards achieving gender equality and pushing them back to the more traditional gender roles.

"An estimated additional 108 million workers and their family members now live in poverty," the ILO report stated.

According to the report, the pandemic has hit African countries worst and there has been a fall in trade.

Moreover, there has been a disruption of supply chains, remittances have shrunk and tourism has come to a halt.

"A crisis-induced jobs gap of nearly 17 million is estimated for Africa in 2020, which includes jobs lost in 2020 combined with forgone job growth as a result of the crisis," the report added.

The pandemic reversed some of the progress made in reducing poverty in Africa by driving up the share of workers living in extreme poverty.