Abstract:
According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), an estimated 122 million people lost their jobs in April 2020 alone and three-quarters of these were small traders and wage labourers, mainly in the informal sector (Thomas 2020). Estimate from the PLFS 2017–18 showed that of 471 million workers nearly 21% were self-employed. Casual labourers in agriculture were estimated at 50 million and 64 million in non-agriculture in 2018. Thomas computes the labour share of income in the GDP at 30% in 2018. Extrapolating from the 2018 figures, Thomas makes a bold estimate of loss of Rs. 4 lakh crores of income among the vulnerable workers in the 2 months of lockdown since 25 March 2020 (Thomas 2020). Further, according to Pranob Sen, Chief Statistician of India, unemployment rates are expected to rise to 8.5% in the financial year 2021 (Suneja 2020).
Whatever the estimate of loss of GDP, our interest is in the income loss and suffering of the workers and their households and the compromises they make to survive the crisis. Forecasts and estimates are useful. However, policy-making also requires a deep dive down into the micro-context of who, what, where, why and how, in a disaggregated fashion, to reach and benefit the concerned workers and enterprises. In this brief paper, I touch on some of these micro-issues concerning enterprises and workers and certain short-term and medium-term strategies for revival of the economy.
