Job losses across Asia-Pacific could double due to coronavirus - S&P Global

CNBC reports that S&P Global warned that job losses across Asia Pacific could double due to the coronavirus pandemic - and some of these jobs may not come back for a while.

"Unemployment rates across Asia-Pacific could rise by well over 3 percentage points, twice as large as the average recession," said S&P's Asia Pacific Chief Economist Shaun Roache in a report.

The services industries are among the first to feel the impact of those lockdowns, but that very sector is also what's driving job creation in countries like Japan and South Korea, the ratings giant said.

"Jobs are at the core of the current economic crisis," said Roache. "Measures designed to limit viral spread are striking at the heart of the engine of job creation across Asia-Pacific - the service sector."

"Service sector activities often require human-to-human contact while mitigation policies aim at social distancing. The clash of these two is obvious," he wrote.

Based on projected reduced growth of about 7.5 percentage points, S&P laid out the impact on job losses among major countries in the region.

These are the estimated increase in unemployment rates at their peak, about four quarters after the growth decline:

Australia: More than 3 percentage points.

Japan: More than 2 percentage points.

South Korea: More than 4 percentage points.

New Zealand: Close to 3 percentage points.

Thailand: Less than 1 percentage point.

"Given the way the services sector is being hit by social-distancing measures, it's plausible that, for every percentage point fall in growth in Asia-Pacific, the rise in unemployment could be larger now than in previous cycles," the report said.