23 Lakh Indians Lost Their Jobs In Three Months Of Lockdown In 2020: Labour Ministry

The nationwide lockdown that was announced on the eve of March 24, 2020, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 came as a rude shock to millions and the worst affected were the millions of migrant workers.

With factories and other workplaces shut and economic activity coming to almost a standstill, millions of migrant workers were left with no jobs, income, or even food.

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Their desperate journeys, often walking for days, covering thousands of kilometers to reach their homes was shocking beyond words.

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Labour and Employment provided in Parliament on Thursday, nearly 23 lakh people lost their jobs in the top nine sectors during the first three months of Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

Out of these, 16 lakh were men and 7 lakh were women.

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The number of male employees before the lockdown in nine sectors was 2.17 crore, which came down to 2.01 crore on July 1 and the number of women employees which stood at 90 lakh had reduced to 83.3 lakh.

The nine sectors include manufacturing, construction, health, education, trade, transport, hospitality, BPO and financial services.

On Wednesday, the Union Home Ministry had informed the Rajya Sabha that the number of suicides due to unemployment during 2018-2020 was 9,140.

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The number of suicides due to bankruptcy or indebtedness during the aforementioned time period was 16,091 as per NCRB records, added the Union Home Ministry in its reply.

This comes at a time when tackling unemployment remains a major challenge for the government.

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) there were a total of 53 million unemployed people in India in December 2021 and a huge proportion of them were women.

According to CMIE, of the 35 million unemployed who were actively looking for work in December 2021, 23% or 8 million were women. At the same time, of the 17 million who were passively unemployed, 53% or 9 million women were willing to work although they were not actively looking for work.

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Recently the youth's desperation over unemployment had spilled over to the streets in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Last month hundreds of job aspirants had taken to the streets in UP and Bihar against the fresh notification of the Indian Railways wherein it has finalised two examinations.

The agitators said that there was only one examination in the earlier notification in 2019, now RRB has issued a fresh notification as well and given a provision of two examinations.

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The officials have also been allegedly involved in irregularities with candidates having 50 marks being passed in the examination while many candidates having 80 to 85 marks have failed.

The agitation also took a violent turn when a large number of agitators set several coaches of New Delhi-bound Shramjeevi Express train on fire in Bihar's Gaya.

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