These are profoundly uncertain times. Covid-19 is spreading with frightening speed and all of us - governments, businesses, and individuals - are attempting to understand how serious the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market around the world.

The impact of COVID-19 on the labour market of each continent

The information is based on the interview of the Adecco Group & Alan Wild - a recognised world expert in Global Employee Relations. He works for the Washington-based HR Policy Association as Global Affairs Director—a membership organization of more than 350 CHROs in the world’s leading companies.

• Israeli airline El Al announced it was laying off more than 1,000 workers as it was forced to suspend routes to some of their more popular destinations like Italy, which has been hard hit by the virus. Labour officials in the Philippines believe that more than 7,000 workers in the tourism and hospitality industries could be out of work because of a decline in visitors. 
• The fact is that COVID-19 is already impacting all aspects of business, from people to supply chains to revenue. Some of the world’s biggest companies—including Google, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, LG and Ericsson—have suspended business travel, expanded work-from-home options and closed some offices in countries most affected by the virus. Nike closed both its head office in Oregon and its European headquarters in Amsterdam for what it termed “a deep clean.” One Nike employee in Amsterdam had, in fact, tested positive for COVID-19.

Read more: The impact of COVID-19 on Vietnam Labour market.

Other information collected by the Adecco Group weekly HR trends

• Analysts stated the European labour market model helps Europe recover from COVID-19 better than the United States. European labour laws make it difficult for companies to hire and fire employees. In countries such as Germany, France and Italy, many measures have been applied to support employees with temporary work suspensions. Otherwise, US and UK are arguing about those models to prioritise their economies protection from further damage.
• Many businesses can find ways to help during the crisis. Some companies are looking into how they can help to produce respirators. In the UK, health secretary Matt Hancock has said he has talked to car manufacturers and military engineers about producing respirators before the country runs out. In Italy, meanwhile, a 3D Printer company saved lives by manufacturing 100 respirator valves for a local hospital that had run out. Meanwhile, education companies are making their resources available free, both to help children whose schools have closed and to provide reskilling and upskilling opportunities for workers who may find they have more slack in their working day. 

Industries around the world affected by COVID-19

• Aviation: IATA (International Air Transport Association) predicted that the industry's total revenue in 2020 will drop by 113 billion USD. ¹

• Tourism & Horeca:
• Greatly affected by Covid, 50 million jobs are at risk of disappearance. ²
• Recover only when people are fully aware of the epidemic's control
• Automobile manufacturing: Product inventory is high, sales are down and supply chains are disrupted leading to the shutdown of mass factories in Europe. In February, automobile sales in China dropped by 79%. ³
• FMCG: E-commerce has become popular with door-to-door service and requires more logistics to meet customer needs. Small and medium-sized retail businesses have to be close closed. 
• ICT: Lockdown, isolation and work-from-home increase smarter working solutions and put more pressure on digital infrastructure. Some social networking companies will find it more difficult to do business as usual. For example, Twitter is having to revise it's content evaluation processes before publishing - an issue that is particularly important with a lot of misinformation about the epidemic being posted at this time.
• Luxury: Demand decreases and changes in purchasing power
• Retail: People still need to get groceries, either in person or online and so supermarkets are having to hire extra staff to cope with demand, as are online retailers such as Amazon. 
• Life science:
• Affected by factories closing many places and supply chains disrupted.
• Developed countries increase capital investment in research and development for solutions against COVID 19. For example, the US agrees to spend 8.3 billion dollars on treatment and invention of vaccines.

Based on The Adecco Group, ¹IATA , ²WTTC, ³China Association of Automobile Manufacturers

Read more: How the pandemic will change the world of work forever