The International Labor Organization's (ILO) this week said the global job market is facing a "highly uncertain" recovery in the second half of the year after its latest report revealed that working hours lost amid the COVID-19 pandemic during the first half of 2020 was significantly worse than previously estimated.

The report titled "ILO Monitor: CCOVID-19 and the World of Work: 5th Edition" was released last Tuesday. It said that the fall in global working hours was "significantly" worse than estimated in the first half of the year, with the Americas the hardest-hit region.

Speaking to CGTN, ILO's labor economist Christian Viegelahn said that a recovery this year is unlikely to return to pre-crisis levels, even in the regions that have recovered faster than the rest.

"We don't see working hours going back to pre-crisis levels, even in the Asian Pacific region," said Viegelahn, estimating a loss of around 4.5 percent of work hours in Asia Pacific regions despite being first hit by the COVID-19 virus.

Globally, ILO estimates that 14 percent of working hours were lost in the second quarter of the year - equivalent to some 400 million full time jobs. It previously estimated a lower 10.7-percent drop in late May, or the loss of 305 million jobs.

In its baseline scenario, the ILO forecasts that working hours lost would decline from its second quarter peak to 4.9 per-cent in the final quarter of 2020, equivalent to around 140 million full time jobs noting that this is still far from pre-pandemic levels.

ILO: Govts can't take away support yet

Most countries, Viegelahn said, have made really significant and often unprecedented efforts to save the economy and livelihoods. However, he added governments still need to work hard to ensure the right policy mix as well as sequence, to not only tackle the short-term issues, but be able to face long-term ones.

"Governments need to be vigilant, find the right mix of policies, to think medium to long term, to truly think about solutions to make economies more resilient to these kinds of shocks," he said.

Viegelahn said the support that was given to workers and enterprises needs to be sustained and cannot be taken away too early.

"We have also seen that a lot of the support was dispersed in advanced economies, and developing countries are still struggling, so here it is very important for global policy coordination and solidarity as well," he said.

A policy that seems to work, he said, was having employers, workers and governments have "social dialogues" to work at solutions together. "It is important to get proper policies in place, so that this new normal is a better normal," he said.

ILO: Migrants, women remain vulnerable

Meanwhile, Viegelahn said that the ILO found several groups that have been more vulnerable to the shocks of the pandemic, namely women, migrant, and informal workers.

"Many migrant workers are in a difficult situation, because in many cases they have lost their jobs. And due to travel restrictions, they cannot travel home, also they do not have access to protection," he said.

Viegelahn said that women are "disproportionately represented" in those sectors hit very hard, including services, hotel and garment industries.

"Many women are also domestic workers … and the health and social care sector is very dominated by women," he said, adding that women are at higher risk as a large portion are in the frontline dealing with people who may have this virus, so proper protection needs to be in place.

Globally, almost 510 million, or 40 percent, of all employed women work in the four most-affected sectors, compared with 36.6 percent of men, according to statistics from the agency.

The ILO's report said that at the moment, about 93 percent of the world's workers live in countries with some sort of workplace closures, with the Americas experiencing the greatest restrictions.