Labour turns to agri, construction as manufacturing fails to create jobs

Manufacturing accounted for 40 million jobs in 2019-20. In the first quarter this dropped to 24.6 million, implying a loss of over 15 million manufacturing jobs

CMIE released the sectoral breakup of employment derived from its Consumer Pyramids Household Survey in its Economic Outlook service late last week. These data are available at monthly and quarterly frequencies. We use the quarterly estimates here to understand the impact of the lockdown by broad sectors and industries.

Employment in agriculture had hovered between 140 million and 150 million since 2016 when the employment series from CPHS begins till the quarter ended June 2020. During the quarter ended June 2020, which was the first quarter of the lockdown and the one that experienced the most severe lockdown across the