Coronavirus taking toll on Europe’s social safety net
New Zealand nears virus eradication, but outbreak keeps grim global hold
PARIS—Europe’s
extensive social welfare net was showing signs of fraying under economic strain from the coronavirus, as protests erupted Friday for a second day in Spain against layoffs by French carmaker Renault.
Elsewhere, New Zealand has all but eradicated the coronavirus with just one person in the country of five million known to be infected. But developments were grim in other countries, with India reporting a record increase in cases, and Pakistan and Russia a record number of deaths.
As cases steadily rose across
Africa, officials who are losing the global race for equipment and drugs scrambled for homegrown solutions.
In the first major increase since it started gradually reopening on May 11, France reported more than 3,000 new daily virus infections. It was not immediately clear if the spike was due to a greater availability of testing. In the U.S., Commerce Department statistics showed a record-shattering 13.6 per cent drop in spending in April, a day after a federal jobs report showed another two million-plus Americans went out of work last week.
In Britain, Treasury chief Rishi Sunak was expected to tell employers that starting in August, they’ll have to share the costs of a program that has effectively placed furloughed workers on the government payroll.
Sunak said the government can’t pay indefinitely for a program that has cost 15 billion pounds ($25.4 billion) to cover 80 per cent of wages of some 8.5 million people. It is in place until October, although the final months will require employer input.
Even as it sought a government loan from France, Renault announced 15,000 job cuts worldwide as part of a twobillion-euro cost-cutting plan over three years, as demand for cars plunged around the globe.
Renault said nearly 4,600 jobs will be cut in France and more than 10,000 in the rest of the world. That had a knock-on effect in Spain, where Nissan is rolling back production in a move Madrid said would mean 3,000 direct job cuts and as many as 20,000 additional jobs in the supply chain. Spanish workers took to the streets for a second day to protest the closure of three Barcelona plants.