Extent of employment recovery

1

The survey provides information for the same individuals in February, just prior to the lockdown, in April-may during the lockdown, and in September-november, six months later. Workers are considered employed if they reported working even a single day in a month. Even with such a low bar, 69% of those employed in February had lost work during the lockdown. Even six months later, 19% were still out of work. That is, they did not find even one day of work in the month preceding the survey. If we apply a more stringent criterion of employment, of at least 15 days of work in a month, we find that, for every 100 workers employed in February, 35 were out of work post-lockdown. Given that these individuals come from poor households, such continued high levels of unemployment are of great concern.

Of the workers interviewed over this period, 26% remained employed throughout, 55% managed to recover from job losses suffered during the lockdown while 15% registered no recovery at all (i.e. could not find even one day of work in a month). A further 5% had lost employment after the lockdown.

Women fared worse than men with a smaller share registering employment recovery in the post lockdown period (53% versus 57%). Employment recovery was found to be more robust in urban areas than in rural areas. But a relatively higher share of urban respondents had not yet recovered from employment loss – a clear indication that urban areas have been much worse hit despite a quicker bounce back.