The Muslim community has been one of the most economically hit groups in India during the worst period of the COVID-19 pandemic besides other minorities including Sikhs and Christians, the government’s data shows.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), from July 2020 to June 2021 has revealed the impact of lockdown on salaried jobs across sectors.
The share of India’s salaried class in the workforce shrank by almost 2% during 2020-21. In 2019-20, the workforce of nearly 23 per cent earned a regular salary or wage, however, only 21% earned in 2020-21.
The survey is conducted between July and June every year, therefore, the 2019-20 survey includes values from the April-June 2020 quarter during the most severe lockdown.
In 2018-19, the labour data has also revealed that the share of Muslims who were earning a regular salary fell from 22.1% to 17.5% in 2020-21, causing a decline of almost 5%.
This means that for every 100 working Muslims, there are now five fewer among them doing a regular salary-paying job.
Other minorities– the Sikhs and Christians also had a grave impact during the pandemics.
The share of Sikhs employed in the salaried sector declined by 4.5 per cent, from 28.5 per cent in 2018-19 to 24 per cent in 2020-21.
The salaried class Christians too shrank by 3.2 per cent, from 31.2 per cent to 28 per cent.
In comparison to these minorities, Hindu employees in salaried jobs fared relatively better, with their share going down by ‘only’ 2.3 per cent, from 23.7 in 2018-19 to 21.4 in 2020-21.
“Amidst rising unemployment, many Muslims had moved out of the job market and went back into the traditional occupations of their families,” Hilal Ahmed, associate professor at the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) told The Print.
