COVID-19 jobs lost in Africa Q4 2020

In 2020, it is projected that Africa will lose 7.9 percent of working hours by the end of the fourth quarter due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The equivalence of this in full-time jobs (FTE) amounts to 29 million. Furthermore, it is estimated that under a pessimistic scenario, there will be a loss of 55 million FTE jobs in the said period. On the other hand, under optimistic assumptions, Africa is projected to lose up to 19 million jobs (FTE).

Projected full-time jobs lost in Africa during the coronavirus pandemic in the 4th quarter of 2020 (in millions)

Characteristic	Jobs lost in millions
Optimistic forecast	19
Pessimistic forecast	55
Baseline	29

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Release date

September 2020

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Region

Africa

Survey time period

Q4 2020

Special properties

Estimates as of September 23, 2020

Supplementary notes

The source estimated the values based on a model namely "nowcasting model".
Values were calculated taking employment levels of the fourth quarter of 2019 as the baseline.
To demonstrate the magnitude of the predicted hours lost, the equivalent losses in full time jobs are introduced. They are calculated based on the assumption that decreases in working hours were borne entirely and comprehensively by a group of full-time workers, while the rest of the workers experienced no reduction in working hours.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs data that is more than 50 million are rounded up to five million, while the values lower than the threshold are rounded to the closest million.

According to the source, the figures should not be interpreted as number of jobs lost or actual increase in unemployment,
A benchmark of working hours before the pandemic was used to compute the FTEs of working hours percentage-drops.
Full-time jobs are considered as those with a workload of 48 hours per week.

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