The International Labour Organisation has just released its full report on the virus's impact on the asia-pacific and, well, it's pretty difficult to get your head around the scale of it all:
"The crisis has resulted in an estimated loss of 81 million jobs in 2020 over pre-crisis trends and an additional 22 million to 25 million employed persons pushed into the realm of extreme poverty, living with expenditure of less than $1.90 per person per day... The COVID-19 impact on the labour market was felt first and foremost through the reduction in working hours induced by national lockdown and containment measures. The Asia–Pacific region was the first to feel the sting of the virus in early 2020, and some countries reacted quickly with strict lockdown protocols to prevent further contagion. In the first quarter of 2020, total working hours across the region were already 7.3 per cent below the hours spent on work in the last quarter of 2019 (ILO 2020a). The loss of working hours in the first quarter was equivalent to a loss of 125 million full-time equivalent jobs (based on a 48-hour work week). Results for the second quarter were significantly worse, with working hours in Asia and the Pacific estimated to have decreased by 15.2 per cent from fourth quarter 2019, which translates to a loss of 265 million fulltime equivalent jobs. The largest loss in working hours across the world is estimated to have occurred in South Asia (with a decline of 27.3 per cent in the second quarter, equivalent to 170 million full-time jobs).".
"The results in figure 5 reveal Macau (China) and the Maldives, which are heavily dependent on tourism, as having the largest downward revisions of economic growth, with their economies expected to shrink by 52 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively, in 2020. Among the economies in the Pacific Islands subregion, Fiji and Vanuatu are projected to shrink the most, with a stark downward revision from the solid positive economic growth rates expected before the crisis. Within South-East Asia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand were among the hardest:"
In short, the more exposed to (reliant on) tourism they are, the more they've been hit. Or in this case, annihilated. Depressing, but not surprising.
However, trade between countries is still waaaaaay down, so the manufacturing-based ones have still been hit hard:
And here's a bit of data comparing now to the GFC & asian financial crises:
Dunno if there's any young lads reading this but that should at least give you an idea of how bad things were in the GFC, with many industries like tourism being smashed in the exact same way as recessions bring us back to the classic econ 101 fundamentals of inferior vs superior goods. Superior goods that we buy when we're flush with cash (like holidaying) are always the first to go when money gets tight and now is no exception.
And to get more granular, here's the data for the percentage reduction (so the figure represents the percentage of jobs
lost) of each of the worst hit sectors/occupations, all of which is probably exactly what your gut has already told you:
You can read the full 94 page report here:
https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/p...bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_764084.pdf
If there's one positive note to all of this it is that Q3 was waaaay better than Q2, so we appear to be on the path to recovery. I'll obviously update & compare with the Q4 data once we have it.
The IMF has forecasted the full year as follows:
AU looks to have come somewhere in the middle - hasn't fared great (no tourists or foreign students), but done OK (still selling rocks by the zillion).