Today Australia hosted a call with the Finance Ministers of Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States. It was the second of a series of regular calls among the countries to discuss the economic issues associated with COVID-19.
Unfortunately, New Zealand was unable to participate, but we look forward to their joining our next discussion.
During the call, we exchanged views on policies to protect jobs during the crisis and to get people back into work as quickly as possible as our economies begin to recover.
Our governments have all taken unprecedented steps to restrict movement to slow the spread of the virus. The largest impacts of this have been on the jobs market. We have already seen the loss of hundreds of millions of jobs globally. A strong labour market is essential to our respective economic recoveries.
We will continue to work together and share lessons to help ensure a strong and sustainable global recovery.