Covid-19 crisis: 5 million salaried Indians lost their jobs in July

Covid-19 crisis: 5 million salaried Indians lost their jobs in July

Part of: GS-Prelims and GS-III – Employment 

In News:

• Recently, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has released data related to jobs gained or lost during the Covid-19 lockdown period (April-July 2020).

Key takeaways 

• Salaried Jobs:
  • They suffered a total loss estimated to be 18.9 million during April-July 2020.
  • After gaining 3.9 million jobs in June, 5 million jobs were again lost in July.
  • Such jobs more resilient to economic shocks. However, once lost they are far more difficult to retrieve.
  • Only 21% of all employment in India is in the form of a salaried employment.
  • Loss of urban salaried jobs is likely to have a particular debilitating impact on the economy, besides causing immediate hardship to middle-class households.
• Informal and Non-Salaried Jobs:
  • This category of job has shown improvement during the April-July 2020 increasing to 325.6 million in July 2020 from 317.6 million in 2019, an increase of 2.5%.
  • This is because of the opening of the country in a phased manner.
  • Small traders, hawkers and daily wage labourers were the worst hit by the lockdown.
• Farm Jobs:
  • The jobs lost in the non-farm sectors have resulted in people moving towards farm employment. 
  • The farm sector gained 14.9 million jobs in the April-July 2020 period.
  • In 2019, 42.39% of the workforce in India was employed in agriculture