Lockdown worsening poverty levels among workers in informal economy: ILO

The Covid-19 lockdown and containment measures threaten to increase relative poverty levels among the world's informal-economy workers by as much as 56 percentage points in low-income countries, according to a new briefing paper issued by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

In high-income countries, relative poverty levels among informal workers are estimated to increase by 52 percentage points, while in upper middle-income countries the increase is estimated to be 21 percentage points.

As many as 1.6 billion of the world's two billion informal-economy workers are affected by lockdown and containment measures. Most are working in the hardest-hit sectors or in small