The Covid-19 jobs crisis
Trade unions and newspapers are reporting that thousands of workers are losing their jobs and livelihoods every day because of the economic crisis caused by Covid-19.
This is a global jobs crisis on a scale not seen since the great depression 90 years ago – with jobs being lost in countries all around the world.
The aim of the Job Cuts Tracker is to monitor daily news reporting of company layoff announcements in 20 countries to count job losses, hold companies and governments to account, measure the human impact, and to gather meaningful data in real time.
Companies cannot use the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic to avoid scrutiny and accountability – the Job Cuts Tracker puts a global spotlight on companies who are cutting jobs.
The Job Cuts Tracker
The tracker constantly monitors news headlines through Google news alerts. The alerts are designed to pick up stories that mention layoffs and related terms selected by the ITUC in original languages. Once the alerts arrive, the job cuts tracker looks for mentions of the number of jobs affected and the company name. After this semi-automated selection, these results are then sent for human review.
Twenty countries were selected to give geographical, economic and population coverage:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Russian, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, the USA.
This includes:
- Seventeen out of twenty G20 countries (in bold)
- Eleven out of 37 OECD countries (Japan, USA, France, Germany, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Italy, Turkey)
- Nine non-OECD countries (Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, Russia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Kenya)
- Coverage of half the population of the world.
The search terms used by the Google news alerts that feed the job cuts tracker were written by native speakers, in order to ensure they included the correct country-related terminology used for reporting job losses.
Read the ITUC Covid-19 Job Cuts Tracker methodology.
Regular reports using infographics of key findings from the ITUC Covid-19 Jobs Cuts Tracker will review company announcements about and trends in job cuts globally and regionally.
Ten worst companies for job cuts (September 2020 - February 2021)
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Worst week for job cuts (6 February - 5 March 2021)
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Ten worst companies for job cuts (February 2021)
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Worst week for job cuts (30 January - 26 February 2021)
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Ten worst companies for job cuts (January 2021)
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Worst week for job cuts (23 January - 19 February 2021)
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Worst week for job cuts (9 January - 5 February 2021)
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Worst week for job cuts (2 - 29 January 2021)
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Ten worst companies for job cuts (December 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (26 December 2020 - 22 January 2021)
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Worst week for job cuts (19 December 2020 - 15 January 2021)
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Worst week for job cuts (12 December 2020 - 8 January 2021)
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Ten worst companies for job cuts (October 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (14 November - 11 December 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (7 November - 4 December 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (31 October - 27 November 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (24 October - 20 November 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (17 October - 13 November 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (10 October - 6 November 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (3 October - 30 October 2020)
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Ten worst companies for job cuts (September 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (26 September - 23 October 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (19 September - 16 October 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (12 September - 9 October 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (5 September - 2 October 2020)
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Worst week for job cuts (15 August - 11 September 2020)
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