A little-noted side effect of the COVID-19 crisis on employment is the impact on the more than 100 countries where the inflow of remittances from workers overseas account for at least 1 percent of GDP. According to the U.N. International Labor Organization, full or partial lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic are affecting almost 2.7 billion workers worldwide, or about 81 percent of the global labor force. Nearly half of those affected are in labor-intensive and low-skilled jobs, many of which are traditionally filled by migrants who often send money home and have no source of replacement income to do so if they lose their jobs.
In 2019, migrants around the world sent at least $700 billion in recorded remittances back to their home countries. Additionally, the International Monetary Fund believes that so-called unrecorded remittances through informal channels (such as money changers) may be 50 percent larger than recorded flows, which...
