For nearly two months, the central government and its agencies have claimed that India’s economy is on the path to a clear “ V-shaped recov...
For nearly two months, the central government and its agencies have claimed that India’s economy is on the path to a clear “V-shaped recovery” – improving sharply after the collapse caused by the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020. On the eve of Republic Day, President Ram Nath Kovind also commended the economy for recovering quickly after lockdown restrictions were lifted in phases.
But does this revival – often a reference to rising gross domestic product or GDP – translate into a recovery of the millions of jobs lost during the early months of the pandemic? Are the unemployed of 2020 back into the workforce? Statistics indicate otherwise. For a country whose economy has been on a downward slope since demonetisation in 2016, India’s management of the pandemic proved to be the final nail in the coffin.
According to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the country’s unemployment rates shot up from 8% in March 2020 to as much as 24% in April 2020 – an immediate impact of the lockdown. As people returned to formal and informal jobs in the following months, unemployment rates shrank once again, falling to 6.5% in November 2020.
Instead of a clear “V-shaped” recovery, however, Indian joblessness has worsened in the past two months. In December 2020,...
