Survey puts April-June job losses at 131,000

In a clear reflection of the ongoing downturn, government data shows that the Indian job market is rapidly shrinking amid the global economic downturn. Manufacturing and service sector firms laid off over 1,31,00 employees during the April-June quarter.

The job losses were mainly in textiles, gems and jewellery as the exports of these continued to shrink, the labour bureau's quarterly report said. During April-June, as many as 1,54000 employees lost jobs in the textiles sector, followed by about 34,000 persons losing jobs in the IT and BPO sectors.
However, there was slight increase in employment in leather, automobiles and handloom, powerloom and sectors during the quarter, especially among non-exporting units, it said.

In textiles and IT/BPO sectors, the average monthly decline in employment during April-June over Jan-March 2009 was at 0.63 per cent and 0.34 per cent respectively.

About 500,000 jobs were estimated to have been lost in the Bureau's survey for the October-December period last year, while for January-March this year it showed a growth in employment by 2,80,000.

The latest survey shows that while the overall employment declined by well over a lakh during April to June, on a month-to-month basis, the situation improved marginally in June. Employment declined by 38,000 jobs in April, followed by 1.57 lakh in May, while as June saw an increase of 64,000 jobs.

At the same time, the number of contract workers climbed by 40,000, says the latest survey. In the metals sector, the decline in employment of direct workers is associated with the increase in employment of contract workers during the same period.