On\nMarch 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19\nwas a global pandemic, indicating significant global spread of an\ninfectious disease. At that point, there were 118,000 confirmed cases\nof the coronavirus in 110 countries. China had been the first country\nwith a widespread outbreak in January, and South Korea, Iran and\nItaly following in February with their own outbreaks. Soon, the virus\nwas in all continents and over 177 countries, and as of this writing,\nthe United States has the highest number of confirmed cases and,\nsadly, the most deaths. The virus was extremely contagious and led to\ndeath in the most vulnerable, particularly those older than 60 and\nthose with underlying conditions. The most critical cases led to an\noverwhelming number being admitted into the intensive care units of\nhospitals, leading to a concern that the virus would overwhelm local\nhealth care systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\nthe deaths rose from the virus that had no known treatment or vaccine\ncountries shut their borders, banned travel to other countries and\nbegan to issue orders for their citizens to stay at home, with no\ngatherings of more than 10 individuals. Schools and universities\nclosed their physical locations and moved education online. Sporting\nevents were canceled, airlines cut flights, tourism evaporated,\nrestaurants, movie theaters and bars closed, theater productions\ncanceled, manufacturing facilities, services, and retail stores\nclosed. In some businesses and industries, employees have been able\nto work remotely from home, but in others, workers have been laid\noff, furloughed, or had their hours cut. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAll the dictums that had\npegged the rise and fall of careers to skill and hard work, can now\nadd a new attribute: corona virus. An invisible factor that can\nspring up suddenly to not only make or break careers, but also wreak\nhavoc on lives and livelihoods. Since the beginning of this year,\nwhen the microscopic virus popped up on the global scene, it has\naltered the economies and budgets of nations and individuals\nworldwide. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n In India, the lockdown since March-end has seen the country\nand industries come to a grinding halt, wiping out startups, bringing\nsmall and medium scale businesses to the cusp of collapse, sowing\nwidespread unemployment and salary cuts, and altering the workplace\nand lives of millions of employees. While the International Labour\nOrganisation (ILO) estimates the loss of full-time jobs worldwide to\nbe 305 million, in India, the total number of jobs likely to be\nimpacted is 136 million, as per the National Sample Survey and\nPeriodic Labour Force Survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\ncompanies try to ensure their survival by cutting costs, many have\nresorted to slashing salaries and laying off people. Others have put\nemployees on indefinite leave without pay or put freshly hired staff\non hold. According to an online survey conducted by the Economic\nTimes on the impact of Covid-19, as many as 39% of the 3,074\nrespondents who took the survey are facing a salary cut, while 15%\nare set to lose their jobs. Despite the fact that 15% respondents are\nfacing a salary cut of more than 25%, almost 43%of these are likely\nto continue with their current jobs and not look for new ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nCompanies are slashing\nsalaries or laying off people in the short term to be able to survive\nby cutting costs. It is in the employees\u2019 interest that the company\nsurvives to ensure job security. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nGross treatment to\nmigrants comes along with massive job loss, historically low wage\nrates, little job or social security and subsistence level existence\nof millions of Indian workers. This is hardly an ideal situation to\nrecover or rebuild the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the only agency tracking unemployment in India, said (i) 18 million salaried employees lost their jobs (from 86 million in 2019-20 to 68 million in April 2020) and (ii) another 18 million business persons (larger entrepreneurs with fixed assets) lost employment (from 78 million in 2019-20 to 60 million in April 2020). This is apart from millions of daily wagers losing their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThere was an overall drop\nof 30% jobs in April & May 2020 (from an average of 404 million\nin 2019-20 to 282 million in April). Larger entrepreneurs reporting\njob loss is disturbing because it reflects that they think their\n“business is destroyed for all practical purposes”, says\nthe CMIE report. So the loss is not just of jobs but also of\nenterprises, the job creators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a global pandemic, indicating significant global spread of an infectious disease. At that point, there were 118,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in 110 countries. China had been the first country with a widespread outbreak in January, and South Korea, Iran and Italy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":508,"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuremug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}