{"id":126998,"date":"2021-08-18T20:18:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T14:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=126998"},"modified":"2021-08-19T18:57:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T13:27:31","slug":"finding-work-is-work-in-progress-covids-impact-on-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/finding-work-is-work-in-progress-covids-impact-on-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding work is work in progress (COVID&#8217;s impact on jobs)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/blogs\/toi-edit-page\/finding-work-is-work-in-progress-economic-activity-is-back-at-pre-pandemic-levels-but-jobs-recovery-is-a-long-haul\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Times of India<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: Dealing with economic implications of COVID<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis<\/strong>: Reversing the pandemic hit to the job market is only a first step. The real jobs challenge still lies ahead. A brief look at the impact of COVID on the job market and the future challenges.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Economy is coming to pre-covid level by witnessing a swift recovery. The Nomura India Business Resumption Index, which tracks the pace of business resumption has risen\u00a0 above its pre-pandemic level of 100 for the first time since the pandemic began last year. However, despite the sharp economic recovery, the job market challenges appear complex.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Impact of pandemic on jobs<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Uneven impact<\/strong>&#8211; High-skilled jobs in sectors such as IT and finance witnessed less impact due to shift to Work From Home (WFH) but WFH is not feasible in contact-intensive services such as hotels, restaurants, travel and tourism, which require physical proximity. Also, the low-skilled jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors took an economic hit due to the pandemic.<\/li>\n<li><strong>MSME&#8217;s impacted most<\/strong>&#8211; Small firms have been hit harder than big firms due to pandemic. MSME&#8217;s had no option but to cut wage costs to remain afloat.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Increase in unemployment<\/strong>&#8211; According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), unemployment rate stood at 8% in mid-August 2021, marginally higher than the 7.8% in February 2020<\/li>\n<li><strong>Job losses<\/strong>&#8211; the pandemic has led to employment loss for 6.6mn workers. Around 10.9mn workers have dropped out of the labour force and are no longer actively seeking work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Why recovery in jobs market is slow?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Slow pace of vaccination<\/strong>&#8211; vaccinating a majority of the adult population is widely expected to take until end-2021, at the earliest. Until then, the economy remains vulnerable to pandemic shocks<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hesitancy of firms<\/strong>&#8211; Firms will want to assess the durability of demand before starting on full-scale hiring<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sectoral issue<\/strong>s- job recovery will be faster for formal sector workers than for the informal sector. For informal sector workers, returning to pre-pandemic level of employment is likely to take much longer due to fear of contracting Covid-19<\/li>\n<li><strong>Business closures<\/strong>&#8211; Many MSMEs, restaurants and small businesses have permanently closed, leaving no jobs behind for some.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Opportunities brought by pandemic<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>The pandemic has <strong>accelerated the pre-existing trend towards digitization<\/strong> and e-commerce. Telemedicine, delivery and fintech are a few examples of sectors that have witnessed fast-paced growth during the pandemic<\/li>\n<li><strong>Supply chain relocations<\/strong> as firms adopt a <strong>China plus one strategy<\/strong> have opened up newer opportunities for India to integrate into global value chains and create new manufacturing jobs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Challenges<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Business travel will likely decrease<\/strong> in a post-pandemic world. Meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibitions (MICE) type of tourism will likely decline<\/li>\n<li><strong>Demand for commercial office space may be lower<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Automation may reduce employment intensity<\/strong> of manufacturing, hurting low-skilled workers<\/li>\n<li><strong>More market concentration<\/strong>, as big firms becoming even bigger, while small firms are closing down, which could hurt job creation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Measures<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Re-skilling and upskilling of the worker is need of the hour.<\/li>\n<li>Creating an enabling ecosystem for MSMEs to thrive by reducing compliance costs, funding costs.<\/li>\n<li>More jobs will need to be created in the infrastructure and construction sectors.<\/li>\n<li>An ecosystem for startups to gainfully employ India\u2019s youth is needed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Terms to know<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/china-plus-on-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">China plus one strategy<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Times of India Relevance: Dealing with economic implications of COVID Synopsis: Reversing the pandemic hit to the job market is only a first step. The real jobs challenge still lies ahead. A brief look at the impact of COVID on the job market and the future challenges. Context Economy is coming to pre-covid level&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/finding-work-is-work-in-progress-covids-impact-on-jobs\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Finding work is work in progress (COVID&#8217;s impact on jobs)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[3574,312,216,3138],"class_list":["post-126998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-economic-growth","tag-employment","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-unemployment","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704828547},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}