Possible effects of Coronavirus in the Colombian labour

The COVID-19 pandemic and its social distancing measures have brought unprecedented socio-economic challenges worldwide. One of the most urgent questions is how the labour force will be affected by the pandemic. The answer to this question will have considerable impact on the countries’ productivity, poverty and unemployment rates, etc. Consequently, the measurement of jobs which can be performed without increasing the risk of contagion has become a priority. However, due to the lack of proper information, less advanced countries such as Colombia (where unemployment and informality rates are high - around 10.5% and 46.2%, respectively in 2019) face huge challenges in making such estimations. Thus, we contribute to the debate by adapting different international work-from-home and proximity measures and estimated the proportion of workers in the corresponding groups according to the context of a developing country such as Colombia. Our results suggest that a fifth of jobs in Colombia can potentially be done from home. While around 10% of Colombian workers have a high degree of physical interaction with other people.