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So no-one has lost their jobs or businesses as the result of the first lockdown and no-one will lose their jobs or businesses as the result of the second and subsequent waves of lockdown? The longer these lockdowns go one, the more folk are put out of work. Eventually, some economies will be unable to recover.
Is unemployment really lower? What do you mean by previous peaks?
I think it would be factually incorrect to apportion all COVID-19 job losses to the lockdowns.
I remember very well that long before any measures were implemented by the government, people started applying their own measures.
We were very busy getting offices converted to remote working as of early February, because people were concerned about using public transport and attending crowded offices. Come the March lockdiwn, all of our customers were working remotely already, and their offices closed. Retail suffered badly, and hotels and airlines were struggling, as were restaurants, well before the March lockdown.
Of course the lockdown brought about more job losses, but this came on top of the massive job losses that were - and will be - caused anyway simply because the public changed their habits due to the pandemic.
In addition many of the permanent job losses have nothing to do with the lockdown. All those coffee shops, takeways, and pubs in business areas have gone because companies are not planning on reopening their offices any time soon (which most companies closed well before the lockdown anyway), as are all those auxiliary jobs such as office cleaners, security, maintenance, etc.
So did the lockdowns make a bad situation worse (in terms of current and future unemployment)? Most certainly yes.
But it would be incorrect to suggest that if the government had done nothing, there would be no job losses, or to blame all job losses on the lockdowns.