Services jobs witness recovery by Dec Qtr | Economic Times

New Delhi: The services sector, barring education, witnessed a near-complete recovery in employment by the December quarter after a significant dip earlier in the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy said. The real estate and construction sectors recovered completely though it remained muted in manufacturing, while there were job gains in agriculture, it said.“By the December 2020 quarter, most of these services sector job losses had recovered,” the independent economic think tank said in its weekly analysis. Data from CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey showed employment in travel and tourism – which took a massive hit during the outbreak – rose by 1.3 million at the end of the December quarter, at 20.7 million. This was higher than the 19.4 million employed by the sector in 2019-20. “Other services sectors have also seen an improvement,” it said. 80416649“As a result, job losses in the services sector are down to just 5.5 million in December compared to 25.5 million in the June 2020 quarter. Services sector employed 157 million people in 2019-20,” it said. The real estate and construction industry gained all the 33 million jobs lost during the pandemic by the quarter ended December. The industry employed an estimated 61 million people in 2019-20, which had fallen to 28 million in the June quarter during the nationwide lockdown. Jobs in manufacturing, however, were 11.4 million fewer in the fiscal year so far, despite a quarter-on-quarter recovery, compared to 40 million employed in manufacturing in 2019-20.