Budget 2022: Tales Of India's Post-Pandemic Struggle For Jobs
Lost jobs and lower incomes—stories still being heard across the country even as the economy recovers.
30-year-old Avijeet, a management graduate and a voice and accent trainer at a travel and tourism firm, knew things were going to get tough when the pandemic hit and brought the travel industry to a complete halt.
He didn't anticipate just how tough it would get.
Within weeks of the Covid-19 infections hitting India in March 2020, Avijeet was laid off over a five-minute call. He chose not to publicise his full name.
“I completed my shift and got a call from the boss that the company is facing revenue losses," recalls Avijeet. "I was told I should put down my papers and not come to work from the next day."
A one-month severance was offered and Avijeet was told that he can join back later when things normalise. “There has been nothing normal since then.”
Avijeet's experience was repeated across cities, industries and roles. As companies responded to a once-in-a-generation crisis, they moved to save costs where they could. Cutting jobs was one way. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy or CMIE estimates that 18 million salaried people lost their jobs in April 2020 alone.
Since then, it has been a slow climb. Economic activity picked up but jobs have been slower to come back. India's employment/population ratio, which had averaged 38% in the six months before the pandemic, has remained in the 35-36% range ever since, with December 2021 still at 36%. "To restore this ratio back to 38% would therefore necessitate the creation of another 20-22 million jobs," JPMorgan's Chief India Economist Sajjid Chinoy told BloombergQuint in a recent conversation on the economy.
Avijeet knows this first hand.
“In my domain, nobody was hiring to begin with and if they were, the levels they were hiring for were two levels lower," he said, explaining that his experience has been mostly in training customer support staff. "Even If I had taken up those jobs, it would have been a temporary stop-gap arrangement, because I wouldn’t have been able to show it on my resume,” he said.
With no immediate options available, Avijeet freelanced, took on gigs where he found them. But his finances took a hit.
“For a person surviving from paycheck to paycheck every month, finances go for a toss... Savings would last for two-three months or a maximum six months,” he said. "A person has to do what he can to survive... Even if it required cleaning cars in my colony, I would have done that eventually."
About a year later, before the second wave hit, Avijeet found a job. But he had to compromise. The new job didn't pay as well, his designation was lower and there was little flexibility in working conditions despite the ongoing health uncertainties. “I had no choice really; I had to take this job to make ends meet and repay the accumulated loan.”
Avdesh Yadav would sympathise with all that Avijeet has gone through. His story is not very different.
Yadav, who has studied till the 12th class, was working as a sales executive at a Tata Motors Ltd. dealership in Delhi. He, too, lost his job in a cost-cutting exercise. Today, Yadav is working at a grocery delivery startup Blinkit (formerly known as Grofers).
"I have an elder brother and he had a decent job which helped me to buy some time to get a job," said Yadav. But eventually he needed one to pay his loan EMIs. "There was hardly a job in the market... and if there was any it hardly paid more than Rs 10,000 per month."
Three months into his job search, a friend recommended a delivery executive's role in grocery delivery startup Blinkit. “This is not exactly what I was looking for and it is like a temporary job for me, but I had EMIs and loan of Rs 2.5 lakh to repay, so I took up the role,” he said.
Yadav misses his sales executive role. “I had respect, pay was good. Here you are running from one house to another, and sometimes the customer doesn’t even treat you with respect.”
Avdesh Yadav delivering an order.
India's data on jobs and wages is patchy. But indications are that people have been pushed into self-employment and casual labour as availability of regular salaried work has declined.
The government's Periodic Labour Force Survey shows that the unemployment rate at 9.4% as of March 2021 was just marginally higher than the 9.1% pre-pandemic. But the share of regular salaried workers has declined from 50.5% to 48.1%. The share of self-employed workers in turn has risen to 39.3% from 38.3% in the year after the pandemic, while the proportion of casual workers has risen from 11.2% to 12.7%.
32-year-old Jitender Singh is among those who had to take to casual labour. He lost his job of four years as a fitter at a Noida-based firm which provides laser cutting and welding services.
“The company said they'll not be able to pay the salaries anymore,” Singh said, as he shows his identity card of the organisation. He tried looking for jobs at nearby factories but nothing turned up. Eventually, he decided to head to labour 'chowk' (market) to make ends meet.
From earning around Rs 20,000 a month, he is now struggling to even make Rs 8,000-10,000. “I have been taking loans from lenders to even provide for basic amenities to the family.”
“From a decent one-room house with all the amenities, kitchen and attached washroom, we had to relocate to an 8*8 room with no washroom. I have two small children and wife, and we are barely surviving,” he said, adding that neither there is work in factories nor in labor chowk. “If another lockdown is announced I will have no option but to head back to our village in Bihar.”
Jitender Singh showing his ID card of the former employer.
Eventually, the uncertainty faced by Avijeet, Yadav, Singh and countless others weighs down the broader economy. Lower wages, uncertainty over a steady income stream means consumption takes a hit and then investment to meet that consumption.
To break the cycle, India needs to create jobs and the onus this time is on government spending. Capital expenditure and spending on infrastructure was stepped up in the budget last year and will likely remain high this year. States are being urged to spend as well.
Execution is now key.
"Employment is the biggest concern now. We have to think about mega projects, execution of those projects to create the necessary impetus for jobs," said Vinayak Chatterjee, an infrastructure sector expert.
But Avdesh isn't hopeful things will change quickly. "I have never seen this level of joblessness ever and as cases continue to surge, it is further going to dent our prospects of getting a job." The last two years have been only about ensuring there is a job that pays, he said.