Southeast Asian countries have suffered "unprecedented" job losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said, adding that the region is still a long way from being devastated by the current delta strain.

While 2020 was the worst year of COVID-19 in many parts of the world, 2021 is shaping up to be a truly devastating year for Southeast Asia, the report said. Since the beginning of the year, the region has emerged as one of the centers of the pandemic worldwide, with many countries now recording daily new cases and deaths.

In a new policy brief released earlier, the ILO revealed that 10.6 million fewer people were employed in asean countries in 2020 than would have been expected in the absence of the outbreak. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, the ASEAN region lost 8.4 per cent of working hours.

"The impact of this outbreak on employment is unprecedented," the fact sheet said. Even during previous economic crises, such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis or the great Recession of 2008-2009, employment in the ASEAN region continued to increase."

In terms of the impact on the workforce, 2021 is set to be almost as bad as last year, the ILO predicts. It expects employment to fall 9.3 million below normal levels in 2021 and 4.1 million below normal levels in 2022. Meanwhile, up to 7.9 per cent of working hours could be lost this year, not much better than last year's 8.4 per cent.

According to the fact sheet, these countries have been hit by a number of factors, including "lockdown measures imposed by authorities to contain the spread of the virus, a sharp contraction in tourism, a reduction in domestic consumption, and impacts transmitted through global supply chains."

The report says different countries will be affected in different ways. For example, in 2020, the Philippines had the largest loss of hours, at 13.6 per cent, while countries such as Laos, Thailand and Brunei had a smaller loss of around 4 per cent. One reason is that the structure of the region's economies is different, and governments have taken different measures to stimulate workers to keep them from losing their jobs.

The fact sheet notes that the pandemic also affects all workers differently. The Labour groups most affected by unemployment include women and young workers.