Covid-19 : the great disruptor of working lives

Abstract

Covid-19 shocked social life across the world like nothing else in living memory, and created the "worst global crisis since the Second World War" (ILO, 2020a, p. 2). It deeply affected humanity on many levels, such as health, interpersonal relations, the economy and international affairs. First identified in Wuhan City, China, in December 2019, the virus outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation on 11 March 2020. Fear of the pandemic spread as quickly as the pandemic itself Governments across the world shut down their economies in a bid to slow the spread of the disease, a justified panic response deemed by most countries as the best way of managing the unknown disease in the short term. The Maltese government closed down schools on March 13, and a large part of the economy days later. By April 2020, four fifths of the world's workforce was affected by lock down measures (ILO, 2020a). [Excerpt]