Évaluation de la pandémie de Covid-19 sur l’économie mondiale

Since people became aware last February of the spread of the coronavirus epidemic, the world economy has suffered an unprecedented shock that has rattled the economic paradigm. As suggested by trends in the sub-quarterly indicators, the GDP growth figures already reflected, in their provisional version, the economic effects of lockdowns on the last two weeks of the first quarter. However, given the severity of the containment measures, significant downward and upward revisions to GDP could be expected. We then assess the impact of the shock on the global economy using input-output tables from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD). The various measures enacted for the month of April had an impact of -19% on added value at the global level. Not all sectors and countries were affected in the same way. At the sectoral level, the hotel and catering branch recorded a 47% fall in added value at the global level. Geographically, Europe was the area hit hardest, in particular Spain, Italy and France, with drops in added value of more than 30 points. Although Germany suffered a smaller fall in activity, in connection with less restrictive containment measures overall, the country is nevertheless suffering from its high exposure to foreign demand. Modelling then makes it possible to describe the impact of the activity shock on labour demand for the month of April. However, while the adjustment of labour demand to the production shock is very marked, the final impact on salaried employment ultimately appears, at least in Europe, to be weak compared to the potential job losses, due to the implementation of measures for short-time working. The United States, lacking such a mechanism,has experienceda greater destruction of salaried jobs, reaching 14.6% of total salaried employment.