Coronavirus and its economic consequences threaten to wipe out progress on gender equality at work as women are at greater risk of losing their job, more likely to be exposed to infection and take on more of the burden of unpaid care, the International Labour Organization has warned.

On Tuesday the UN agency increased its estimate of global working hours lost to the pandemic, largely due to the worsening health situation and economic conditions in the Americas.

It said global working hours were 14 per cent lower in the second quarter of 2020 than in the last quarter of 2019 — equivalent to a loss of 400m full-time jobs. Workers in developing countries with high levels of informal employment were being hit much harder than in previous crises, the ILO said.