News: 6.6 Mn white collar professional jobs lost in 4 months: CMIE

Employee Relations

6.6 Mn white collar professional jobs lost in 4 months: CMIE

According to CMIE weekly analysis based on the data from the 20th wave of CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey released every four month, the biggest loss of jobs among salaried employees was of white-collar professional employees and other employees.
6.6 Mn white collar professional jobs lost in 4 months: CMIE

“From a peak of 18.8 million white collar workers employed in the country during May-August 2019, their employment fell down to 12.2 million in the May-August 2020. This is the lowest employment of these professionals since 2016,” said Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

These include software engineers, physicians, teachers, accountants, analysts and the type, who are professionally qualified and are employed in some private or government organization. However, this does not include qualified self-employed professional entrepreneurs. 

Furthermore, according to CMIE, the next biggest loss was among industrial workers. “By a similar year-on-year comparison, they lost five million employees. This translates into a 26 percent fall in employment among industrial workers over a year. But the pandemic did not impact white collar clerical employees which largely includes desk-work employees ranging from secretaries and office clerks to BPO/KPO workers, data-entry operators and the types. “Possibly, their work shifted to the work-from-home mode." 

It is rather tragic that qualified professional today sturggle to find a job and live upto their potential. While the government and several reports kept advising, many firms did ultimately lay off employees. The relaxation of lockdown has brought some hope that the economy and business condition may improve. However, many sectors like hospitality and tourism still continue to struggle. Lockdown or not, the threat of COVID-19 still persists and continues to impact the way we do business, the way we work, and the economy. Amid this crisis if the government, the associations, and corporates collaborate and come up with ways to minimize the job loss, it could help improve the situation.

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Topics: Employee Relations, #COVID-19

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