Overall, the unemployment rate in India shot up to 23 per cent in April and May 2020 – more than three times the rate (7.3 per cent) in February 2020, noted the State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020 . Before the pandemic (2018-19), it had hovered around 8.8 per cent.
The lockdown resulted in millions of workers losing their jobs overnight; migrant workers were compelled to return home.
“We returned home a month after lockdown,” recalled Archana Mandwe of Beed, Maharashtra. Faced with depleting savings and no income , the family of five had no option but to return to their village. With bans on travel, they could only move at night – travelling 200 kilometres from Aurangabad on a single motorcycle.
PARI has reported more than 200 stories about the impact of covid-19 on workers in India. The PARI Library , in its sections on Covid-19 and Labour , supplements these stories with research and reports examining the state of workers in India and the struggles they face. These include publications by the government, independent organisations and UN agencies.
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— source ruralindiaonline.org | May 3, 2023