oecd.org (29.04.2021) Active labour market policies (ALMPs) that connect people to jobs will help to ensure an equitable and sustained recovery from the COVID‑19 crisis. Already in 2020, many governments reacted swiftly to the crisis by increasing funding for their public employment services (PES), training programmes and measures to increase labour demand. This has allowed the PES to hire additional staff and expand remote and digital accessibility to ensure service continuity.

ipcig.org  (09.04.2021) The fourth and last section of the Policy in Focus1 magazine analyses the social protection responses to the COVID-19 crisis in Asian countries

blogs.worldbank.org (26.04.2021) In the months after the first cases of COVID-19 appeared in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), countries across the region acted quickly to limit the spread of the virus. Lockdowns, curfews, and social distancing undoubtedly saved lives, but these necessary actions also constrained businesses and economies. Communities suffered from the loss of jobs and livelihoods, the closure of schools and markets, and the damage to businesses, many of which may never recover.

A bill seeking to distribute financial and production support amounting to P15,000 to at least one million small fisherfolks in the country has been filed in Congress. This, as the income of small fishermen already went down to as low as P150 per fishing trip more than a year into the pandemic. In a statement, Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA) backed the said bill, which aims to “pump-prime the wheels of production” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Bank (March 2021) The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered one of the largest economic downturns since the Great Depression. Beyond its devastating effect on health, morbidity, and mortality, the pandemic shook economies and labor markets around the globe, leaving no firm, worker, and household untouched. Governments responded to the crisis with a series of public health and containment measures that deeply affected societies and economies, including the supply and demand for goods, capital, and labor.

dol.gov (06.03.2121)

The U.S. Senate approved a Republican measure setting federal unemployment benefits for those made jobless by the coronavirus pandemic at $300 per week, as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

gov.cn (26.01.2021)

Considering that the risk of the pandemic still exists, some enterprises may be under great financial pressure, the policy of phased reduction of premium rates of unemployment insurance and work injury insurance will be extended for another year until 30 April 2022.

Monash University (12.04.2021) As the pandemic-related shutdown intensified across Australia from March 2020, temporary and undocumented migrants and their advocates warned of devastating impacts on migrant workers and international students who were simultaneously losing their incomes while being excluded from social security benefits.

Reuters (07.04.2020) Oman on Wednesday restructured its pension and social protections systems, part of a reform push by the Gulf Arab state wrestling with an economy battered by low oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic.