As our government continues to say that it has no data on job losses amid the pandemic, the actual data shows a grim picture of the state of unemployment in India.

According to CMIE, an estimated 6.6 million white collar professional jobs were lost in India between May and August, this year.

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This brought professional employment to the lowest levels since 2016 and wiped off all gains made in the last 4 years.

Further, data from CMIE suggests that around 5 million industrial workers were out of work during this period.

White-collar professionals were the worst-hit due to the pandemic. This includes, software engineers, physicians, teachers, accountants, analysts and those employed in some private or government organisation.

As stated by CMIE,

From a peak of 18.8 million white collar workers employed in the country during May-August 2019, their employment fell down to 12.2 million in May-August 2020. This is the lowest employment of these professionals since 2016.

However, the lockdown did not impact white-collar clerical employees like desk-work employees ranging from secretaries and office clerks to data-entry operators and the types.

A day after #NationalUnemploymentDay trended on Twitter, netizens expressed their resentment with the current state of affairs in India.

No doubt, why unemployment in India continues to remain the lowest.