Job losses: Youngest, oldest employees worst hit in 2nd wave

When it comes to losing a job permanently, the youngest and the oldest segments in the workforce have reported an increase in setbacks in the second wave of the pandemic, a survey of by a Fortune500 company has said.

The survey, conducted in April this year, covered 2,000 persons in India.

Six per cent of those over 55 years of age reported having permanently lost their job, as against 4 per cent last year.

In those aged under 24, the proportion reporting a permanent job loss has increased to 11 per cent from 10 per cent in the year-ago period, the survey done by financial technology company FIS said.

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy in May estimated that over 1 crore Indians have been rendered jobless because of the second wave of the pandemic and the unemployment rate had touched a 12-month high of nearly 12 per cent.

It said that across all the other buckets of age groups, there was a dip in the number of people reporting a permanent loss of employment in 2021 as compared to the year-ago period.

Apart from the permanent job loss, nine per cent of those aged 18-24 said they have faced temporary layoff as against 21 per cent last year, while in the case of those over 55, the incidence came down to seven per cent from last year's 13 per cent.

Meanwhile, the pandemic and its economic impact – the GDP contracted by 7.3 per cent – also seems to be driving up incidents of frauds with one third of those polled saying they experienced a fraud in the last 12 months.

Among the 18-24 year olds, 38 per cent said they witnessed fraud in the last 12 months while the same went up to 41 per cent in the case of those aged between 25 and 29.

"The financial frauds were mostly through phishing, followed by QR code/ UPI scams, but consumers were also victims of card scams and skimming," a company statement said.