Many manufacturing companies weighed labour cost cuts even before lockdown

Salary and wage bill for manufacturers was down around 1% YoY in Jan-Mar

Corporate results for January-March 2020 suggest that many manufacturing companies had begun to rationalise their labour costs in that quarter itself, even though they were shut for only seven days during the period because of the nationwide lockdown in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.

The combined salary and wage bill for manufacturers was down around 1 per cent year-on-year during Q4FY20, its worst show in at least 10 years. In comparison, these companies' salary and wage cost was up 7.7 per cent Y-o-Y during Q4FY19, and up 2 per cent during the October-December 2019 quarter.

In fact, many large manufacturers