The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to wipe out 6.7 percent of working hours globally in the second quarter of this year, equivalent to the labor of 195 million full-time workers, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO).

More than four out of five people in the global workforce live in places hit by full or partial lockdown measures, the UN's labor body said. Adding that we are in a "worsening crisis" that is having "devastating effects" on the world of work.

In an interview with CGTN Europe at the organization's headquarters in Geneva, ILO director-general Guy Ryder said: "It is definitely the most severe employment crisis any one of us has seen. The question is, how long this is going to last?"

(Cover image: A man wears a protective mask while waiting for a bus in Detroit. /AP Photo/Paul Sancya)