Despite the recovery in overall employment rate, around five million salaried people have lost their jobs in July, reaching the total number of job losses in the category to 18.9 million, according to the Centre for Monitoring India Economy(CMIE).
Situation Is Alarming
Out of that, 17.7 million salaried jobs were lost in April 2020, while 0.1 million jobs were lost during May.
In June 3.9 million jobs were gained, but again 5 million jobs were lost in July as per the CMIE data.
The daunting increase in the number of job losses among salaried class is a source of concern.
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What Does CMIE Say?
Due to an unhealthy recovery, it looks like that the situation is worsened for the salaried employees as CMIE said, “On a net basis, the plight of salaried employees has worsened since the lockdown began as by July, their losses had swelled to 18.9 million,” CMIE said.
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CMIE added, “While salaried jobs are not lost easily, once lost they are also far more difficult to retrieve,”.
So far, only 21% of the employment in India is in the form of salaried employees and these are the people considered to be more resilient to economic shocks according to the think-tank.
Comparing to the current situation, salaried jobs were nearly 19 million short of their average in 2019-20.
During April, 30% of the employees had lost their employment, while in July, less than 3% were bereft of their source of livelihood, which comes to 11 million job losses which a significant setback said CMIE.
So far, the Covid-19 spread infected over 2.7 million people in the country, while the economy took the grater hit as according to the estimation, 121.5 million jobs were lost during the lockdown in April.
In May, the loss narrowed down to 100.3 million, 29.9 million in June and 11 million people lost their jobs in July, as per the CMIE data.
What About The Recovery?
During the lockdown, the small traders, hawkers and daily wage laborers suffered the most.
Now, jobs are coming back gradually with the opening of the nation in a phased manner from June, however, the recovery is mostly in informal jobs.
Some hope is displayed in CMIE data as the recovery in jobs reflects, to a great extent due to the unlocking of the economy.
On the other hand, this also reflects the desperation of Indians to get back to some employment after a rather prolonged involuntary break.