-The Indian Express An estimated 50 million people are believed to have lost their Jobs in just two weeks of the lockdown. The CMIE data showing rise in unemployment in urban areas by more than 22 per cent between March 22 and April 5 confirms that the lockdown prompted by coronavirus will wipe out the tremendous gains made by India in being the only country apart from China to lift millions out...

-Livemint.com * There will be a tsunami of job losses for employees who don’t have a regular salary, people without a written contract * A labour market crunch right now can easily turn into a nightmare. Besides the possibility of social unrest, expect more demands for more reservations in government On a Monday afternoon, a day before India announced a 21-day lockdown to flatten the curve of covid-19 infections, Sunil Gupta, chairman and...

-The Indian Express The central government’s package, as it is, comes a week after Kerala first announced a Rs 20,000-crore support for its people. Many states including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Telangana and Rajasthan followed suit. The Rs 1.7 lakh crore economic package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for the vulnerable sections — farmers, women, construction workers, senior citizens, widows and the disabled — is less than 1 per cent of...

-The Hindu The 21-day lockdown has suddenly left several thousand workers in the informal sector without Jobs and any means of sustenance. It is around 3 p.m. Carrying luggage on their backs and wearing black masks, seven men, visibly fatigued, are signalled to stop by a policeman who hurriedly jumps out of his vehicle at Rajiv Chowk on the Delhi-Gurugram highway. The officer makes a few inquiries before letting them off, asking...

-The Telegraph The large-scale unemployment the pandemic was set to cause would cost workers between $860 billion and $3.4 trillion in income losses Several workers’ organisations have demanded a special package to tide workers over the income slump entailed by coronavirus-induced social distancing and economic slowdown, at a time the International Labour Organisation has predicted a loss of 25 million Jobs globally. An initial assessment by the ILO said the impact could be...