An incomplete and exhausted recovery

In August 2021, seventeen months after that draconian lockdown of April 2020, employment continues to remain lower than it was in 2019-20

India’s recovery from the lockdowns of Covid-19 has been swift, partial, exhausted and discriminating. In April 2020, employment shrunk by a massive 30 per cent. In absolute terms, of the 403.5 million jobs in 2019-20, only 282.2 million survived the world’s most severe lockdown. But, the recovery was swift. In May 2020, 31.5 million jobs came back, in June 2020 another 63.2 million were restored and in July 2020, 15.3 million more returned. By July of 2020, the loss of jobs had narrowed down to 11.1 million. The huge job losses incurred initially were as unexpected as was the swift