London: At least 225 million full-time jobs disappeared worldwide last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report published by the International Labour Organisation, a United Nations agency.

The losses are four times worse than those of the global financial crisis in 2009, worse even than the Great Depression. But the ultra-wealthy have seen their wealth soar.

According to another report, by anti-poverty non-profit Oxfam, the combined wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has risen by more than $US500 billion ($638 billion) since the crisis began - enough to vaccinate the entire planet and then some, according to the organisation.

Both sets of findings, released on Monday, London time, identify inequality as one of the pandemic’s principal outcomes. “Job destruction has disproportionately affected low-paid and low‑skilled jobs” which “points to the risk of an uneven recovery, leading to still greater inequality in the coming years,” the ILO found.