People With Masters Degree Are Working As Car Park Attendants Amid COVID-19 Job Loss In Punjab

The COVID-19 pandemic forced India into lockdown in March. It caused a sudden loss of employment for daily-wagers, and severely affected the poor across the country.

The unemployment scenario is getting all the more worrying with every passing month.

Reuters

The situation is extremely grim even for people with a proper qualifications.

An India Today report quotes the example of a 27-year-old woman named Saraswati, who holds a masters degree and is forced to work as an attendant in a car parking lot, after losing her job amid the pandemic.

Sarsawati¡¯s colleague, Rupesh Kumar Nirmal, who worked at a Nasik-based solar panel manufacturing unit was also forced to leave Mumbai after the COVID-19 outbreak. He is also a graduate and went to Chandigarh to live with his brother who worked as an accountant, reports India Today. Rupesh also works as a car park attendant.

Kamal Mishra, 31, is a rickshaw puller who hails from Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh. He, along with dozens of other rickshaw pullers, had left Chandigarh in March this year.

Image For Representation/DNA

¡°It was a painful journey. We crossed over 52 barriers, were beaten up by the cops. Our heels and toes were bleeding when we reached home. It took over two months to heal the wounds. When we lost all our savings we came back to Chandigarh,¡± said Kamal told India Today.

Also Read: Hike In Food Price, Job Loss Is Killing Over 10,000 Children Every Month During COVID Pandemic

The pandemic has rendered nearly 10 lakh people jobless in Punjab. The Punjab government has decided to organise the 6th edition of the State Level Mega Job Fair from September 24 to September 30 across all the districts. Nearly 1.50 lakh job-seekers have already registered for the event.

¡°The Punjab government is committed to bringing the economy and life back on track. We have announced packages for the entrepreneurs to boost employment, and a job fair is also being organised to help the people who lost jobs,¡± the CM said.

Reuters

The lockdown-induced unemployment is not limited to Punjab alone. Lakhs of people have lost jobs in the neighbouring states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, and UT of Chandigarh.

According to a study conducted by Panjab University, Chandigarh, and Punjabi University, Patiala, nearly 54 per cent of the people working in the informal sector have been hit by the pandemic.

Also Read: Going Atmanirbhar! After Job Loss During Pandemic, Visually Impaired Man Sells Home-Made Snacks

As many as 41 lakh youth in the country lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and construction and farm sector workers account for the majority of it, according to a joint report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The report is based on regional assessment of the 'Global Survey on Youth and COVID-19', and arrived at estimates based on available unemployment data in different countries.

It said that in India, two-thirds of firm-level apprenticeships and three quarters of internships were completely disrupted during the pandemic.

The report calls on governments in the region to adopt urgent, large-scale and targeted measures to generate jobs for the youth, keep education and training training on track, and to minimise future scarring of more than 660 million young people in the region.