The world’s workers are reeling from the initial shock of the coronavirus recession, with job losses and welfare claims around the globe already running into the millions this week.
With International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warning of a "crisis like no other,” the cuts from Austria to the United States reflect the deepest peacetime recession since the 1930s as economies are frozen to beat the pandemic.
"We see unemployment rates in the U.S. and Europe getting up well up into the teens,” Peter Hooper, global head of economic research at Deutsche Bank AG, told Bloomberg Television. "Given the pain that we see near-term in the U.S. and Europe, this is unprecedented since the Great Depression, in terms of magnitudes.”