The Quarterly Employment Survey for months of October-December, 2016, showed that 1.13 lakh persons lost their casual jobs in the manufacturing sector, followed by 20,000 people were laid off in IT/BPO sector.
Nearly 1.5 million people lost jobs during the January-April period this year, data by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) revealed. Another 0.42 million jobs were lost during May-August 2017.
According to the data, the total number of people employed during January-April 2017 was 405 million as compared to 406.5 million employed during the September-December 2016 period. This means that close to 1.54 million jobs were lost during January-April 2017 period.
Demonetisation and implementation of the Goods & Services Tax (GST) could be the possible disruptors that led to job losses, CMIE said. Also, the ban on sale of firecrackers before Diwali led to job loss in the unorganised sector.
"One of the biggest costs of demonetisation was job losses. We estimate that about 2 million jobs were lost between January and August 2017," the report said.
Job creation continues to be a crucial issue for the government. During the week ended October 15, urban employment stood at 7.5 percent, significantly higher than numbers witnessed in last 12 months.
As per the data from Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), only 2.9 lakh persons got placed. Nearly 30.67 lakh candidates underwent training till the first week of July 2017 under the government scheme.
Listed companies too have shown decline in employee numbers. According to an Indian Express report, from a set of 107 companies, there was a net decline of 14,668 employees from the end of March 2015 till the end of March 2017.
Few of the large companies saw a fall in workers including L&T — who parted with 1,888 employees, Hindustan Unilever who laid off 1,453 people, Idea Cellular fired 707 persons, ACC parted with 535 persons, Tata Motors with 534 people, and Tata Steel laid off 450 persons.
The Quarterly Employment Survey for months of October-December, 2016, showed that 1.13 lakh persons lost their casual jobs in the manufacturing sector, followed by job losses in the IT/BPO sector to the tune of 20,000.
