Migrant Workers in India May Shun Cities After Lockdown
Migrant workers fled India’s cities en masse last month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lockdown left them suddenly unemployed. Now the employers that let them go may need to offer big incentives to lure them back, reports Bloomberg.
Sontosh Das, 24, lost his job driving for a family of doctors in India’s capital of New Delhi and fled to his village in West Bengal some 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) away, just before the lockdown took effect on March 24. Now home in eastern India, he said he’d rather try his luck with the government’s rural job-guarantee program than risk being left with nothing once again.
“After Modi ji’s lockdown, we’re scared of returning,” Das said over a crackling phone line. “During tough times, only family comes to help.”
Tens of thousands of workers who returned to villages are now similarly weighing whether to return at the end of the lockdown, which Modi this week extended to May 3. Companies are already reporting labor shortages at ports and factories, potentially exacerbating an economic slowdown. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. this month slashed its annual growth forecast for India to the slowest pace since 1992, around when a balance of payments crisis brought down the sitting government.
Continue reading at Bloomberg.
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