not surprisingly the coronavirus
pandemic has left its
mark based on a survey of over 12 000
business leaders from 127 countries the
reporters
unemployment top off the list now just
like previous reports
like the one from the international
labour organization massive job losses
due to the pandemic are expected to
negatively impact business for the next
10 years now fiscal issues until
recently the main risk factors
dropped into third position followed by
cyber attacks and social instability the
report is part
of the global risk initiative which aims
to find
sustainable solutions for global
environmental challenges
and that of course also includes the
impact of a pandemic
now for more i'm joined now by the
managing director of the world economic
forum
sadia sahidi in geneva and there she is
good to have you with us
tell me i mean given that the
coronavirus pandemic led to various
lockdown
uh is the the outcome of this report the
result of it
does that come as a surprise to you
you know it's not really a surprise in
the sense that um
the spread of infectious diseases rates
number two globally
it's amongst the the highest rated risks
across east asia eurasia europe
so not surprising in the sense that the
pandemic has had that
impact but what we are starting to see
is as business leaders look out
to the next year or so they're starting
to think about what are the knock-on
effects that will create further risks
and clearly unemployment and job losses
is one very large risk that comes to the
surface cyber attacks are another
large list that comes to the surface and
not surprising because they're very much
the result
of the highly digital economy we now
live in in the case of cyber attacks
and in the case of unemployment all of
the displacement that has taken place
due to the lockdowns which is then
further compounded
by automation of work but report even
says i mean you mentioned the knock-on
effect of the pandemic
especially for the jobs market and those
business leaders expect
this knock-on effect to last for at
least 10
years where is that figure coming from
that's a that's a long time
no i think this is where um they're
starting to factor in
other aspects beyond the lockdowns
themselves i think we're starting to see
now a sense of
this recession may take longer to get
out of
or there might be that k-shaped recovery
that many are talking about
where for some parts of the workforce
and some parts of
the the the economy it will be possible
to have a relatively fast recovery
and then for a very large part it may
not be possible and again not
surprisingly
the top five the fifth risk globally
is profound social instability and i
think that's what they're starting to
factor into their assessment
all right so this k shaped recovery uh
quite clearly leading
to to more inequality something that
we've been struggling with uh
even before the pandemic the report
provides a special look at
regional risk factors how do they differ
if there's any difference at all
so certainly infectious diseases um
across eurasia europe
across most of uh east asia and the
pacific
but then unemployment underemployment
are the biggest concerns in south asia
and sub-saharan africa
and i think this is not surprising that
in the emerging parts of the world where
there has been
less fiscal stimulus less room from
governments to be able to provide
support
to protect jobs to provide workers with
support when they're out of the source
of income
in those parts of the world unemployment
and underemployment
is an even bigger concern than it is in
most advanced economies
and and quite a few of those uh regions
that you just mentioned of course
climate change the impact of climate
change is also something to think about
and interestingly enough the worry
about climate change has somewhat
dropped in that
latest report of yours does that worry
you
so i think it's interesting we with this
this is really looking at what are the
views of business leaders as the top
risks to getting
business done and you're starting to see
yes that climate change is
within the top 20 but towards towards
the the bottom of that top 20
yet very specific risks are actually
rising in their assessment so
businesses are starting to get deeply
concerned
about specific aspects of the climate
risk when they're looking at their
ability
to be able to do business so
biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse
that's up eight ranks natural
catastrophes up
seven ranks extreme weather events up
five ranks
so i think they're really starting to
build that into their own assessment for
their ability to get things
done all right well there's a a beam of
hope
then there uh sadia sahida
thank you so much uh for your time uh
satya saheed here from the world
economic forum
thank you thank you