Over 122 million people in India lost their jobs in April, according to estimates from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Around 75% of them were small traders and wage-labourers.

Tamil Nadu was among the worst-hit States. Its estimated unemployment rate in April was the highest among States and its labour participation rate among the lowest.

Kerala had the lowest labour participation rate in April.

Massive fall

The average employment reduced from an estimated 404 million during 2019-20 to 396 million in March 2020. In April it came down to 282 million (122 million estimated job losses).

Affected sectors

The small traders and wage-labourers category lost more than 90 million jobs in April 2020 compared to the 2019-20 average.

A significant number of salaried workers too lost their jobs. According to CMIE, while the small traders which includes hawkers may return to work after the lockdown, the salaried workers will find it difficult to get their jobs back.

18 million business-persons are estimated to have lost employment in April 2020. The average count of entrepreneurs was 78 million in 2019-20. This fell to 60 million in April 2020.

CMIE said in its report that the large scale loss of employment among business-persons is an indication that the loss during the lockdown is not limited to just jobs but also to enterprises.

Affected States

The chart plots unemployment against labour participation rate (employed plus those searching for jobs) as of April 2020, across States. Tamil Nadu is among the worst-hit with a very high unemployment rate.