A third of job losses in Asia linked to tourism: ILO

[BANGKOK] Nearly a third of total job losses in 5 Asian countries were linked to tourism, with an estimated 1.6 million jobs lost, said UN labour agency International Labor Organization (ILO).

Evidence from Brunei, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam showed that job losses in tourism-related sectors in 2020 were 4 times greater than in non-tourism industries, the agency said on Thursday (Nov 18).

"Even with countries in the region focusing heavily on vaccinations and designing strategies to slowly reopen borders, jobs and working hours in the tourism-related sector are likely to remain below their pre-crisis numbers in Asia-Pacific countries into next year," said Chihoko Asada-Miyakawa, ILO assistant director general and regional director for Asia and the Pacific.

In Brunei, the tourism sector was hard hit, with employment and average working hours contracted by about 40 per cent and 21 per cent respectively. It was the country that saw the largest difference between employment losses in tourism and non-tourism related sectors.

In Mongolia, tourism employment and average working hours contracted by about 17 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

In the Philippines, employment in the sector contracted by 28 per cent, compared to an 8 per cent loss in non-tourism related sectors. Workers in the tourism-related sector working zero hours per week rose 2,000-fold.

In Thailand, average wages in the tourism sector decreased by 9.5 per cent as workers moved into lower-paid jobs, while average working hours declined by 10 per cent. In the first quarter of 2021, employment was below pre-Covid numbers in all tourism-related sub-sectors except for food and beverage serving activities.

In Vietnam, average tourism wages fell by nearly 18 per cent, with the decline for women employees even higher at almost 23 per cent.

BLOOMBERG