2020 The Year That Was: Creating jobs will be the hardest task in 2021

The biggest worry is not the shrinking of the labour market, but the collapse of good jobs

The biggest economic challenge of the government next year is reviving the job market after it was hollowed out by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government’s survey of the labour market in the cities conducted from January-March 2020 and April-June 2020 is due for release, but has not yet been made public. In the absence of this data, the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy’s (CMIE’s) Consumer Pyramids Household Survey offers the most comprehensive insights into the labour market.

The CMIE data shows the unemployment rate peaking at 27.1 per cent in the first week of May when India was in