Virus wipes out economic dreams of a generation in Asia

Visitors attend a recruitment fair organised by Thailand's Ministry of Labor in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sept 26, 2020. - Bloomberg

HONG KONG (Bloomberg): Asia’s fast-growing economies for decades have offered millions of young people the chance to do better than their parents, a path to upward mobility now at risk as youth unemployment soars in a region home to a majority of the world’s 15- to 24-year-olds.

These young people -- just at the start of their working lives -- are losing jobs at a faster rate than older generations because almost half are clustered in the four economic sectors hurt most by the Covid-19 pandemic, including wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, business services and accommodations and food service.