Has the COVID lockdown really resulted in serious loss of jobs in India?

While the blue collar jobs have been large, even white collar jobs have been consistently lost in the last six months. According to a report jointly authored by the International Labour Organization and the Asian Development Bank, India lost nearly 4 million jobs due to COVID-19 impact.

According to the ILO-ADB report, construction and agriculture have seen the worst extent of job losses during this period as they got directly and indirectly impacted by the pandemic and the subsequent lag effect. These sectors are yet to show signs of recovery.

ILO says that India was representative of the larger Asia Pacific problem. The Asia Pacific region is up against a twin problem as an outcome of COVID. There is shortage of jobs and worse still, there is high proportion of young people employed in the informal sector.

This has already had a negative impact on the spending power of Asian households and the problem is likely to get accentuated in coming months. Adults have been better off than youth in this region and that is good news for future spending, according to ILO-ADB.