Pandemic creating 'lockdown generation' as one in six youths stop work: UN

The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has caused surging unemployment worldwide, but has hit young workers especially hard, forcing more than one in six people aged under 29 to stop working, the UN said Wednesday.

“I don’t think it is giving way to hyperbole to talk about the danger of a lockdown generation,” International Labour Organization chief Guy Ryder told a virtual press conference, warning that the impact on young people’s work opportunities could “last a decade or longer.”