Under-30s may never recover from Covid career setbacks

More than one in six young people worldwide have lost their jobs due to the havoc wreaked by the coronavirus, raising fears of a “lockdown generation” whose financial prospects are blighted for decades.

Under-30s have been hit particularly hard as the outbreak has ravaged jobs in industries such as hospitality and insecure work in the so-called gig economy, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) warns.

Young women are expected to have lost out the most.

Even those still in employment have suffered an average cut to their hours of almost one-quarter.

The figures highlight the scale of the sacrifice young people have been forced to make to combat an illness that mainly threatens older people.

ILO director-general Guy Ryder said: “As we recover from the pandemic, a lot of young people are simply going to be left behind, in big numbers.

“The danger is that this initial shock to young people will last a decade or longer.

“It will affect the trajectory of young people throughout their working lives ... permanently scarred by the immediate effects of the pandemic.”

Lessons from past recessions suggest that young workers who are laid off or fail to get a first job will suffer financially and in terms of their health for the rest of their lives.

About half of young students told the ILO that their education had been disrupted.

One in 10 fear they will not finish their courses.

Ryder noted that furlough schemes and other support packages around the world were not cheap and the average eurozone country’s debt was likely to rise above 100% of GDP, far higher than the 90% threshold previously seen as unsustainable.