Of The 11 Million Jobs Lost In 2018, 8.8 Million Belonged To Women

India saw a major job crunch last year as, according to a report by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the total number of jobs lost in 2018 was a whopping 11 million. In other words, that is the number of Indians who lost their jobs in 2018. One of the major findings of the report is that women were the worst hit by the job crisis. About 8.8 million women lost their jobs in comparison to only 2.2 million men.

Going deeper into the analysis, rural women lost 6.5 million jobs while urban women lost only 2.3 million jobs. However, the CMIE report has a different story to tell for men as urban men actually gained 5,00,000 jobs while the rural men lost 2.3 million jobs.

"An estimated 9.1 million jobs were lost in rural India while the loss in urban India was 1.8 million jobs. Rural India accounts for two-thirds of India's population, but it accounted for 84 per cent of the job losses," the report stated.

The report also warned that increasingly, the number of jobs is diminishing in the country as the total number of employed people in December 2018 was 397 million, which is 10.9 million less than the figure of 407.9 million seen a year ago at the end of December 2017.

The report also viewed the job loss trend from the point of age group and found that the safest age group is 40 to 59 years as people in this category retained their jobs the most while all other age groups seem hit by the job crisis scenario. Salaried employees who lost their jobs in 2018 account for 3.7 million people and it hugely impacted uneducated people, wage labourers, agricultural labourers and small traders. Wage labourers, agricultural labourers and small traders also suffered a huge blow in the aftermath of demonetization.

Rural women lost 6.5 million jobs while urban women lost only 2.3 million jobs. However, the CMIE report has a different story to tell for men as urban men actually gained 5, 00,000 jobs while the rural men lost 2.3 million jobs

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"So, the break-down of employment statistics by the various attributes of respondents discussed above tells us that a person who lost the job in 2018 mostly fits a profile like -- is a woman, particularly a woman in rural India, is uneducated and is a wage labourer or a farm labourer or is a small-scale trader and is under 40 years or more than 60 years," the report said.

"India's unemployment rate shot up to 7.4 per cent in December 2018. This is the highest unemployment rate we've seen in 15 months. The rate has increased sharply from the 6.6 per cent clocked in November," the report said.

While the overall trend shows a steep decline in jobs, there are a few variations. September and December saw volatile employment estimates despite the fact that month after month employment estimates have increased or declined by 5-7 million.

Picture credit- Buddhi

More Stories by Poorvi Gupta