Covid-19 has spread on a global scale, leaving no part of the world economy unaffected. The OECD has warned earlier that the global growth could fall to 1.5 percent in 2020 as a consequence of the covid-19 pandemic. The IMF has forecast a 3-percent contraction in the world economy and a 1.2-percent contraction in the Korean economy. The Bank of Korea reported a 1.4-percent contraction in preliminary real GDP and a 0.6-percent contraction in real GDI quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2020. Household consumption declined by 6.4 percent in same quarter, as exports and imports shrank by, respectively, 2.0 percent and 4.1 percent. Statistics of Korea’s employment data revealed that the number of those in work declined by 195,000 in March 2020, whereas the number of the economically inactive population grew by 516,000.
