CMIE also said that even as jobs are back but income is not. It concluded that people who have retained jobs have experienced pay cuts or those who lost their jobs have moved to lower-paying jobs.
Mumbai: More than half the households in India have suffered a fall in incomes during the lockdown, compared to a year ago, and a very large proportion has seen no increase, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
Even as India is nearly eight months into the lockdown with several relaxations in the movement of goods and delivery of services, and many fast frequency indicators have reported a smart recovery, but the recovery in household incomes is very slow, CMIE said in its latest report.
Till March 2020, around 30-35 per cent of households reported an on-year improvement in their incomes, which fell to 27.4 per cent in March; 9.6 per cent in April; and 3.6 per cent in July.
Later, when the recovery began, the proportions of people seeing an improvement in the household incomes marginally rose to 4.3 per cent in August; 4.9 per cent in September; and 5.4 per cent in October. These proportions are still far from the 30-35 per cent before the lockdown hit the fortunes of households.
The recovery in household income growth is almost negligible even as the unemployment rate has returned to its earlier levels and the absolute employment levels are close to their pre-lockdown levels.