A similar thing happened after the bubonic plague hit Europe in the late 1340's. Somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 of people were killed by the plague throughout Europe. While it wasn't totally world wide, it was pan-European. And that plagues killed both more in numbers and as a percentage of the population than COVID. England didn't recover it's population numbers until somewhere in the middle of the 1700's.
After the plague subsided wages increased for the workers that were left. It was one of the things that led to the rise of the merchant class in the following years.
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