The U.N. chief is launching a new initiative to reform the United Nations as it approaches its 80th anniversary.

(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)GENEVA – Four times as many jobs were lost last year due to the coronavirus pandemic as during the worst part of the global financial crisis in 2009, a U.N. report said Monday. That is equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs - quadruple the impact of the financial crisis over a decade ago. “This has been the most severe crisis for the world of work since The Great Depression of the 1930s. Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. The fallout was almost equally split between reduced work hours and “unprecedented” job losses, he said.

GENEVA – The U.N. labor agency warned Wednesday that the coronavirus pandemic has led to a massive drop in income for workers around the world and of rising inequality between rich countries that have injected government cash into their economies and poorer countries that can’t. Lower-income countries and those in the Americas were particularly hit. The ILO said the fiscal stimulus packages have been concentrated in richer countries, and that developing countries have “limited capacity to finance such measures.” It added that developing countries would need nearly $1 trillion in stimulus just to maintain the pre-pandemic gap with richer countries. ILO Director-General Guy Ryder called signs of such a fiscal stimulus gap an “extremely worrying observation” and “the polar opposite of the better world that we want to build back” once the pandemic eases. Ryder said a “relatively small effort” by rich nations could make an “extraordinary difference in countries that are least able to mobilize resources."

GENEVA More than one in every six young workers have stopped working during the coronavirus pandemic, the U.N. labor agency reported Wednesday, warning of long-term fallout that could lead to a lock-down generation if steps arent taken to ease the crisis. They have been basically ejected from their jobs," he said, referring to the one in six youths who have stopped working. "A lot of young people are simply going to be left behind in big numbers. Of the 178 million young workers employed around the world, more than 40% were in hard hit sectors when the crisis began," such as food services and hospitality industries, the ILO said. More than three-fourths of young workers are in informal jobs - including 94% of young workers in Africa alone.