Job crisis for disabled in post-covid world
NEW DELHI: Rizwan Safi, 24, gets distressed every time his wife asks him about returning to work. Safi had joined an auto parts company in September 2019 and his parents arranged his marriage soon after.
In March last year, during the lockdown, his factory shut temporarily, but Safi, who earned ₹9,000 a month, lost his job. “My wife feels I never had a regular job and she was cheated into marriage,” says Safi, who is blind.“my supervisor promised me that he would call me back soon. But everyone, except three totally blind people, including me, has been called back to work. A blind person depends on physical touch, which is a taboo in COVID times. It is the need for social distancing that cost me my job,” adds a distraught Safi. Safi is not the only one. “Almost half of the 200 people with disabilities I found placements for lost their jobs or have been furloughed. Covid-19 is particularly harsh on the blind. These days employers have apprehensions about hiring the blind, fearing they would not be able to maintain social distancing. My job has never been so difficult in the past decade,” says Tejinder Singh Bisht, who helped Safi find a job and heads placement division at Blind Relief Association, a Delhibased NGO.
People with disabilities – who mostly worked in hospitality, retail, finance, BPO sectors-have been disproportionately affected by the economic consequences of the Covid crisis, with thousands of them losing their jobs or being furloughed. They say even before the pandemic, disability-inclusive work culture was a mirage for them and they were hired mostly with a sense of charity. Covid- 19, they feel, has changed even that consideration on the part of companies.
And for those who lost their jobs life has been a daily struggle. Take for example, Shayam Sunder, 43, who is deaf. Sunder, who lives in Dwarka worked as a linen and uniform attendant in a five-star hotel in Delhi, and earned ₹11,000 a month before he was furloughed during the lockdown. He has since been desperately trying to find a job.
“It was always difficult for a disabled person like me to find a job. The hospitality sector is hit hard, and since I am just class 10 pass, I am not sure if I will find employment in the near future. I have so far survived on family support. The feeling of being a burden on others is stifling, ” says Sunder, talking to HT through a sign language interpreter.
“People with disabilities, who mostly have entry-level jobs in different sectors, have suffered significant job losses during the Covid -19 crisis. Many of them are the only bread earners in their families. The emotional cost of being unemployed is high as a lot of them are considered a burden by their own families,” says Arman Ali, executive director, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People, a cross-disability, non-profit organization.
The problem , Ali adds, is that for most companies offering employment to the disabled is part of their CSR activity and not their HR practice.
According to World Bank data, India has 40 to 80 million people with disabilities. The 2011 census pegged this figure at 26.8 million, with the National Capital Territory of Delhi accounting for 2.34 lakh, a number disputed by disability rights activists, who say the actual figure is higher.
While there is no data available about how many disabled people have lost their jobs during the Covid-19 crisis, NCPEDP conducted a study—‘locked Down and Left Behind’-- to assess the condition of people with disabilities across the country. Out of 1,067 who were surveyed, 57% said they were facing an employment-related financial crisis, 13% spoke of challenges in accessing rations, while 9% were facing obstacles in access to health care and medical aid.
Praveen Jindal, a resident of Vishwas Nagar in Delhi, who has a disability in one leg, says that every month he faces threat of eviction from his house. His only income right now, he says, is Rs 2500 that he gets as disability pension from the government. Until the lockdown, he worked with an agency that collected credit card payments for a bank. “My landlord raised the rent from ₹4,000 to ₹6, 000 a month, which I cannot afford. For a few months, my family and friends supported me but eventually, I had to sell my mobility vehicle,” says Jindal.
Top e-commerce companies, says Ramya Miryala, director, Deaf Enabled Foundation, an organization which helps train and find placement for people with hearing impairment across the country, have been the only ray of hope in the otherwise grim employment scene. “At least 220 people out of 750 we found employment before the pandemic have lost their jobs. In the 11 years that we have been working for the deaf, we have never seen so many people lose their jobs. Thankfully, some have been employed by e-commerce companies where they are into loading, unloading and packing-tagging,” says Miryala. “The hearing impaired succeed in jobs where work is visual, but opportunities dropped by 50% last year,” says Ruma Roka, founder Noida Deaf Society.
A S Narayanan, president , National Association of the Deaf, says it will be difficult for the deaf to regain their jobs as a majority of them worked in hospitality sector which was hit hard by the pandemic. “All the hotels are conscious of their social responsibility. They are working at reduced staff strength. Most people with disabilities worked in spas, housekeeping and service departments; many areas at hotels are still closed,” says BK Kachru, vice president, Hotel Association of India and chairman emeritus & principal advisor, South Asia, at Radisson Hotel Group.