Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Employment and Earning in Urban India during the First Three Months of Pandemic Period: An Analysis with Unit-Level Data of Periodic Labour Force Survey

Urbanisation has accelerated the pace of development throughout the world. Big cities provide employment and livelihood for workers because of which workers have always migrated from rural areas to cities. However, in India, most of the migrant workers are absorbed in the low-paid and low-skilled jobs in the widespread informal sector. With the outbreak of COVID-19, lockdown was declared suddenly without any notice in India during the last week of March 2019 and most of the urban informal sector workers suddenly lost their jobs, and since they had no protection, they were pushed into poverty. Detailed analysis of such losses is of utmost importance so that perfectly appropriate remedial measures can be taken by the government. Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) report of 2019-20 has analysed the situation of labour market in India for four quarters from July 2019 to June 2020. Therefore, the last quarter of the data will give us the valuable information about the urban labour market during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic period. This study analyses the possible reasons behind decline in monthly earnings and labour market participation of urban people in India during the period of outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, i.e. during the period from April 2020 to June 2020, using the data of fourth quarter from each of the PLFSs of 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 since they have identical seasonal conditions. We have used cross-tabulation method to find out employment and unemployment rates of people in urban areas according to gender and type of employment for the period, from July to June, for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020. We have also tried to find the reasons behind the decline in income of workers during the first three months of the pandemic period, i.e. during the fourth quarter of 2019-20, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017-18 and that of 2018-19 using the Mincerian wage equation. Our empirical results have shown that urban workers in India have lost jobs and suffered from significant decline in income during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic period in almost all types of employment.