The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has claimed that there were job losses to the tune of 22.7 million in just April and May this year due to lockdowns induced by the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mahesh Vyas, the chief of CMIE, today said that the total number of jobs in India is of the order of 400 million. Of these, about 2.7 crore jobs were gone.

Much of the country has been locked down since mid-April. Barring states such as Gujarat, India saw partial lockdowns and curfews after cases peaked in mid-April. Even now, most of the States are yet to lift the lockdowns despite a steep fall in the daily caseload. Uttar Pradesh recently lifted lockdown in most of the districts after a steep fall in the positivity rate. And Maharashtra is continuing with its lockdown policy. The unemployment problem is a direct effect of the lockdowns.

There is a caveat, though. The CMIE is seen as a biased research organization by several commentators. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, a researcher who has been tracking employment data, is usually not in agreement with the CMIE. He recently said that FY21 recovery was a broad-based one before the second wave hit us.

"CMIE is a tabloid masquerading as a research house. A cursory glance at their website or Mahesh Vyas' columns proves this," a Twitter user, who is also a researcher, recently commented.