Re-employment still a challenge for those who lost jobs in COVID-19 first wave

As many as 40% of individuals who had lost their jobs over April or May 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic hit India, had been unable to seek out a paying job even ten months after the nationwide lockdown started, with the issue most acute for youthful staff in city India, as per a new survey-based report.

On a median, individuals who lost their jobs remained unemployed for six months and this worrying pattern of extended unemployment was taking part in out even earlier than the second wave of the pandemic, in line with the report knowledgeable by a survey of practically 4,800 people throughout 150 city ward clusters in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

“Unemployment spells are, on average, almost half a year for unemployed individuals. Employed individuals are working on average six hours less than their usual weekly hours, and the share of them with work for the full year has halved since the previous year,” concluded Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli in their report titled ‘City of Dreams no more, a year on: worklessness and active labour market policies in urban India’.

Over 3,200 of those respondents had additionally been contacted amid the first wave of the pandemic for a survey printed final September, which had revealed that 52% of city staff went a minimum of a month with out work, pay or any monetary help in India’s first lockdown which started in March 2020.

Stopped trying for work

Around 2% of those contacted through the newest survey carried out by means of subject visits and phone calls between January and March this 12 months, had dropped out of the labour drive altogether and have been not trying for work.

“A year after the pandemic hit India, urban individuals are facing worklessness, work without pay and long spells of unemployment. 40% had no work or pay ten months on, and average unemployment spells among the unemployed were six months before the second wave of the pandemic hit,” the report from researchers on the London School of Economics and Political Science stated.

The high quality of employment for those affected the worst was not optimum even earlier than the pandemic, with simply 14% being paid on the minimal wage degree in their earlier jobs.

Official social security nets proceed to be out of the attain of most working people, the report stated, with solely 12 of 4,763 survey respondents having an account with the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation or the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).

Younger people hit arduous

“The new survey shows that those in the lower half of the pre-Covid earnings distribution (below median) are faring worse in terms of job losses, zero hours and zero earnings. Younger individuals, between 18 to 25 years of age, are suffering more too. They are less likely to be in work and more likely to have not worked any hours in the week before the survey (compared to 26-40 year olds),” the report famous.

Younger people in the decrease half of pre-Covid earnings, have even worse outcomes, with 47% of them not having any work the earlier weeks or no pay during the last two months or longer, the report identified.

“Young workers, who are over-represented in informal employment, are particularly at risk of long-term worklessness. This can have life-long scarring impacts on their employment and earning prospects as well as their mental health, and is detrimental to the overall wellbeing of their communities,” stated Ms Dhingra.

Ms Kondirolli stated that almost all of people surveyed would like a job assure over money transfers to deal with the disaster, as a result of it could immediately tackle the dearth of labor and livelihood insecurity.