REUTERS

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) forecasts an unemployment peak in the country in the second quarter of 2020.

"We expect that unemployment in Ukraine will peak at 11.5% in Q2 2020 due to the coronavirus crisis, compared to 8.2% last year. This means that the number of unemployed will temporarily increase to 2.1 million people. As the gradual easing of quarantine measures that started in May continues and the economy recovers, unemployment will also decline in H2 2020, but will remain higher than last year," NBU Governor Yakiv Smolii said during the annual research conference of the National Bank of Ukraine and Narodowy Bank Polski.

Read alsoUnemployment in Ukraine grows by 64%

Видео дня

Due to the coronavirus crisis, global working hours in the second quarter may decrease by 10.5% compared to the last pre-crisis quarter. This is equivalent to 305 million full-time jobs, he said.

"In addition, it could jeopardize 1.6 billion people working in the informal economy, which is about half of the global workforce may lose their jobs, according to rather appalling data from the International Labor Organization. The coronavirus does not seem to discriminate between the rich and the poor, or between white-collar and blue-collar workers," he added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the number of the officially registered unemployed in Ukraine soared by almost 10 times compared with the figure before the introduction of the nationwide quarantine.

Most of the unemployed are registered in the following sectors of the economy: trade and repair services, agriculture, the processing industry, and public administration.

The Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture predicts an increase in unemployment in Ukraine this year to 9.4%.