Along with its various adverse effects, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the economies of the countries, leaving a massive number of people unemployed. This unemployment forced many Indians to wander on the streets.
But this situation eventually seems to be improving as we have fairly adapted to the impacts of the COVID pandemic. In January 2021, India had an employment rate of over 6 percent, which was a tremendous improvement compared to December 2020.
COVID’s Impact on Indian Employment Rate
When the pandemic struck, India’s economy had already been in the midst of its extensive drop in recent decades. There were also legacy issues such as a slow rate of job creation and a lack of governmental commitment to improving working conditions which left a considerable portion of the workforce without any job security or social safety. Also, the lockdowns had tremendous devastating effects on India’s economy, and its unemployment rate rose to 24 percent in April 2020.
According to research published by Azim Premji University, the first wave of COVID pandemic pushed 23 crore people below the poverty line. According to this report, during the last year of the pandemic, rural India saw a rise of 15 percent in poverty while a surge of 20 percent was observed in urban India.
According to a 2021 report released by Business Today, the poorest 20 percent of households lost their entire income in April and May. In contrast, the wealthier households lost less than a quarter of their pre-pandemic earnings. Many Indians dream of having a Sarkari Naukri that offers them a job security advantage. The states take many exams for these jobs, and the Sarkari Result is published online. But this pandemic left many people jobless.
The Road Ahead
According to reports by PTI, the head of sales at Indeed India, Sashi Kumar, said that the restoration of the Indian economy and businesses’ efforts to overcome hurdles posed by COVID-19 had led to a recovery in the Indian job market.
The number of job roles in the food and retail industries surged by 52 percent and 39 percent, respectively, whereas the demand for HR and finance roles increased by 27 percent each between July 2020 and July 2021. According to Sashi Kumar, the increase in employment demand in the food and retail sectors indicates that the consumer economy will boost job growth in the country.
Undoubtedly, the COVID pandemic in India has had a significant detrimental effect on India’s employment figures since early 2020. But now this employment graph has a positive upward slope. The government is taking many initiatives to support its people so that they can feed their families and have Government Jobs . With these many efforts, the job hiring rate in India is back to the pre-COVID level.
Job Postings are Slowly Recovering
When the coronavirus epidemic broke out, the entire world was wonderstruck, and as businesses were hit, hiring halted, and job losses began. Now the economy, along with the job hiring rate, is on a gradual recovery rate. According to the JobSpeak Index of Naukri.com, hiring activity observed a 5 percent month-on-month rise in July, but it is still 47 percent lower than July 2019.
The recent data published by Indeed India suggests that the hiring activity has returned to pre-pandemic levels. According to these statistics, job listings for IT Tech software roles climbed by 19 percent from July 2020 to July 2021. Furthermore, other IT job roles like an engineer, project director, etc., climbed by 8-16 percent.
With the lifting of lockdown restrictions and the subsequent reopening of places, the focus on hygiene and sanitization became even more vital. As depicted by Indeed India, the housekeeping and caretaking jobs grew by 60% between July 2020 and July 2021.
According to a report, the employment activity in India has been steadily improving, with the hiring rate in July this year being roughly 65 percent higher than pre-COVID levels. According to LinkedIn India- Labour Market Update (July 2021), the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a decline in job rates in April 2020. It has been steadily improving since then.
