Monthly wages fell or stagnated in many countries in the first six months of 2020, with the pandemic hitting lower-paid workers and women hardest, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said.

The crisis is “likely to inflict massive downward pressure on wages in the near future”, the UN agency said in a report.

While wages fell or grew more slowly in two-thirds of countries for which data was available, in the remaining third, a rise in wages was largely due to many lower-paid workers losing their jobs, skewing the average higher.

Those in lower-skilled jobs lost more working hours than higher-paying managerial and professional jobs, it said.