Effect of Pandemic on Indian

Economy and Employment

Group Members
Durga Sai Kumar Peruri-2515
Lakshmi Narasimha Kalari-2528
Akshanshi Sharma-2559

Abstract
The present article has made an attempt to insight the impact of
COVID-19 on India Economy ,mainly focusing on the point of
Unemployment caused due to pandemic by considering the secondary
data collected through websites ,newspapers,journals and reports.For
the past few years,the Indian economy is experiencing jobless
growth.The rate pf unemployment in India has risen rapidly over the
past few years,despite the boost in the Indian economy and now due to
the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown as most of the private enterprises
have fired their employees,the economy was further exacerbated by the
unemployment crisis and this made up to 135 million jobs could be lost
and 120 million people might be pushed back into Poverty.The Informal
sector is the most affected by the lockdown,nearly 70% of the labour
force lose their jobs and most of the migrant workers worse off due to
the shutdown of construction works forced them to lost their jobs.

Introduction
The novel Corona virus disease 2019(COVID-19),which first
appeared in Wuhan city,China in December 2019, has caused global
distress,claiming lives and collapsing economies, as many individuals are
connected globally(Acemoglu.,2020, Nakamura and Managi ,2020).Given
Its deepening threat to human lives and economies, the Director-
General of the World Health Organization(WHO) declared COVID-19 a
Public Health Emergency of International Concern(WHO,2020) on 30 th
January 2020. Restrictions on the movements of both people and goods
have disrupted supply chain and accelerated the unemployment
problem .The lockdown came into force on March 25,initially for three
weeks then extended to May 17 and then to the end of May.Some curbs
were eased on April 20, but many commercial activities and all public
transport remain suspended.Migrant labourers are suffering.
The most affected were daily-wage earners and those with no
job security.About 90% of Indians 500 million strong workforce toils in
unregulated businesses and jobs,part of a vast informal economy.Indian
had seen a sharp spike in the new corona virus cases with the 45 million
cases and nationwide death toll has crossed 5.2 lakh so far.In this back
drop the present study efforts to analyse the impact of covid-19 on
labour market.The Urban workforce struggled a lot to survive the times
of pandemic lockdown as most of them are daily-wage workers and
construction workers and mainly migrant workers who migrated to
urban areas for work by leaving their homes in rural areas.Rural
workforce also effected as they are dependent mainly on agricultural
related works.Women workers also struggled in pandemic times.