Many workers’ lives have been abruptly upended by the coronavirus pandemic, as job losses in tourism, air travel, food and drink or other industries hit those both on fixed contracts and in the informal sector.
From employees making a comfortable living, to others just scraping by, people around the world are confronting anxiety over how to feed their families and shame at being forced to seek handouts amid growing poverty.
The IMF says that world GDP is set to plunge 4.9 percent in 2020 from the crisis sparked by the global pandemic, and warns that low-income households and manual workers are most affected.
AFP met people who already are, or fear they soon will be, without work and spoke of their despair, sacrifices, dashed hopes and fears for the future.
Plunged into precariousness
“I’ve slipped into a state of insecurity,” says Frenchman Xavier Chergui, 44, who for 10 years has been a temp maitre d’, filling in at Paris restaurants when they were short staffed.
The married father of two made a monthly 1,800-2,600 euros ($2,062-2,978), and in a really good month could sometimes earn 4,000 euros.
But as soon as France locked down, the work stopped and the family is surviving on state aid of 875 euros.
He hasn’t been able to meet his monthly rent of 950 euros since March, nor the electricity bill for three months. Although he’s managed to keep up his 250-euro car loan repayments, the family’s holiday in the southwest is off the cards, he said.
“We’ve lost everything… Psychologically you have to cope with it,” he told AFP. But his wife is suffering from depression and he is just holding out for September when he expressed hope that business will resume – virus permitting.
Forced career about-turn
With dreams of becoming a pilot, 26-year-old Colombian Roger Ordonez had been working as a flight attendant for Avianca since 2017 while studying to get his wings.
“You get used to a certain lifestyle because you have a good salary and you can travel,” he said.
He’s visited various countries in the region and the US in recent years and took his family for their first trip abroad. At the end of March, at the airline’s request, he agreed to take two weeks’ unpaid leave, which was then extended.
Two months later, he learned that his temporary contract would not be renewed after it ended on June 30.
In the meantime, Avianca filed for bankruptcy. Ordonez has had to abandon his pilot studies and can no longer help his family out with the bills.
“I’ve looked for work but it’s difficult because my sector is tourism and it’s the most affected by COVID-19,” he said.
He is thinking of retraining, perhaps in management, trade or sales, he said.
Food bank ‘shame’
To fill the fridge and feed her student son, daughter and grandson, Sonia Herrera has no choice but to rely on the food bank.
“It makes me a bit ashamed to ask for help,” the 52-year-old Honduran, who lives in the Spanish capital, said.
People look, and there’s the guilt of wondering if “maybe others need it more,” she added.
As a domestic worker, she earned a monthly 480 euros until her employers in central Madrid let her go, the day after Spain’s lockdown began.
As an undocumented migrant, she cannot claim state aid. The whole family lives on about 600 euros in unemployment benefits that her daughter Alejandra, 32, receives after losing her job as a cook in a nursery which had to close during confinement.
With a few savings too, they scrape by. But little pleasures “that you notice when you lose them,” such as occasionally going out for an ice cream, are gone and their cat Bella’s operation had to be put back.
“The end of the month scares me more than the virus. You have to eat after all,” Herrera said.
‘Total shock’
Ukrainian IT specialist Natalia Murashko, 39, was due for a promotion after four years as a senior quality-control engineer at American travel company Fareportal.
When the pandemic hit, about 15 employees were dismissed on March 31 but she thought her job was safe as her bosses had reassured her.
However, the very next day, she was given two weeks’ notice. “I thought at first it was a stupid April Fool’s joke,” she said.
“It was a total shock.”
Murashko’s computer skills placed her in a rarefied group that can make several thousand euros a month in Ukraine, compared to an average salary in the country of around 300 euros. She was able to afford a cleaner, trips to the beautician and new clothes.
From one day to the next, her life changed beyond recognition.
Now she’s living off savings and odd jobs. In June, the mom of two teens, who also looks after her 73-year-old mother, made 600 euros.
Her job hunting has been fruitless and she limits her spending to the absolute minimum.
“One thing I haven’t cut is my psychotherapist,” she said. Since losing her job, she’s had trouble sleeping and suffers anxiety.
Living in fear
Marie Cedile dreads hearing that she’ll be among those to lose their jobs at French shoe company Andre, which filed for bankruptcy on March 21 before going into receivership.
Under the only takeover offer on the table, just half of the 450 staff would be kept on.
She’s worried that at the age of 54 and having spent all her working life at Andre, she’ll have trouble finding a new job. “I have customers whom I fitted for shoes when they were little and who come today to get their children fitted,” she said.
In 2019, one of her two daughters died at age 29 of brain cancer, she said. “Fortunately I had my work, relationships with the customers; that helps.”
After 30 years she still earns the minimum wage – 1, 250 euros a month. Just over 1,000 euros goes on rent for their flat in the Morangis suburb of Paris.
“You need two salaries to cover it. My husband is unemployed but he’s younger than me. He should find a job,” she said.
“I’ll take anything if I’m laid off, even if it means cleaning houses, I’ll find something.”
A girl cries at a makeshift camp where jobless and homeless Venezuelan migrants remain during the coronavirus pandemic, in Bogota, Colombia on June 17. Photos: AFP
