Lockdown hit 22% of salaried jobs: Study – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Covid-19 pandemic has had a sharp impact on jobs for the youth while salaried jobs have borne the brunt of the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of the deadly infection, according to CMIE surveys.
“Cumulatively, between April and July 2020, 11 million jobs were lost compared to the average employment in 2019-20. But job losses in the workforce aged less than 40 were much higher, at 19.6 million,” Mahesh Vyas CMIE MD and CEO said.
He said that the age profile of workers due to the lockdown is shifting towards the relatively older workers as declining demand due to the economic slowdown has shut out the openings for the young to enter this space.
Vyas lists several reasons for this decline in jobs for the youth. He said since the young workforce is less experienced, they are easy to part with. Firms invest in fresh labour during the initial period to make them useful later but the slowdown prompted them from making such investments. He also said that due to the lockdown companies cannot hire and train new recruits which has emerged as “very serious constraint.”
In an earlier post, Vyas said salaried jobs were estimated at 86.1 million in 2019-20. He said while informal jobs have returned and even increased after being hit by the lockdown, formal jobs have not. “Non-salaried forms of employment have increased from 317.6 million in 2019-20 to 325.6 million in July 2020. This implies a growth of nearly 8 million jobs or an increase of 2.5% in informal employment. However, salaried jobs have declined by 18.9 million by the same comparison. Or, declined by 22% during the lockdown,” according to the CMIE MD and CEO.
Citing CMIE data on listed companies, Vyas said the wage bill of these 1,560 listed companies recorded a 2.9% increase in the June 2020 quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago.