Pune: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a large disruption in salary payments across several organised sectors, stated a study undertaken by the Pune-based Centre for Advanced Studies in Policy Research (CASPR).

The study was conducted by CASPR’s director Sandeep Hegade and journal of economic policy analysis editor Aakash Kamble.

For the survey, around 16,356 employees directly engaged with education, manufacturing, information technology (IT) and IT-enabled service (ITES) and hotel and tourism sectors in four major industrial centres -- Mumbai, Pune, Delhi NCR and Bengaluru, were interviewed. This includes the industrial areas around these metropolitan cities like MMRDA region, Delhi NCR region, industrial zones coming under Bengaluru, Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Aurangabad and Nagpur.

These respondents were above the first level and above managerial grade having worked for five or more years and having a permanent or probationary role in their organisations.

The study provides an overview of the state of affairs in the select sectors across these geographical regions. The study can serve a purpose to understand further the transitionary movement of the workforce across the sectors as well as through geographical zones. It would prove to be an important document in shaping policies in the short run, stated the CASPR team.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE STUDY

• 93 per cent of teachers working in higher education are either being partly paid or unpaid for May 2020. This is the highest among the sectors.
• 68 per cent educational institutes either did not pay or reduced salaries in April itself, becoming the sector which was quick to react in disrupting wages.
• Hotel and Tourism are second-highest for wage disruptions and most affected with cancellations of travel and accommodation bookings.
• IT and ITES managed to give away salaries in April 2020 with only 8 per cent not being able to do so. However, the sector couldn’t match the status-quo in May 2020 with 68 per cent organisations disrupting the wages of employees for May 2020.
• Manufacturing industries are doing marginally well than other sectors with 59 per cent organisations disrupting the wages of their employees which was 14 per cent in April 2020.
• More than 56 per cent of organizations across all four sectors have communicated their employees about possible job reductions.
• 64.5 per cent respondents said that agriculture and allied professions would be one of the prime options for them to get into if they find it difficult retaining themselves in the existing professions.

RURAL ENTERPRISES DOING BETTER JOB
Rural enterprises in selected regions of Maharashtra still do a better job when it comes to paying their employees; except IT and ITES. The wage disruption in rural areas is far less as compared to urban areas, stated the study.

According to the study it has been observed that the manufacturing industries in rural areas are facing a high capital crunch. These are mostly Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) providing unfinished goods to big companies.

Private educational institutions are performing worst in this aspect too. Private institutions running across rural parts in Maharashtra charge lesser fees as well, as they, function on far lesser student volumes than the academic institutions in cities. Whereas, the hotel and tourism industry is mostly based on industrial activities in rural parts. Evidently, they are at low performance in paying wages to employees as compared to their counterparts in cities.

BENGALURU DOES MARGINALLY BETTER
The study also revealed that the organisations in and around Bengaluru industrial area are performing comparatively better in paying wages to their employees. Hotel and tourism industry in Delhi NCR and Mumbai are worst performing in paying salaries regularly to their employees.

The automobile sector present in the Delhi NCR has also been hit largely. The education sector in all leading cities is not at best for uninterrupted salaries. These cities and areas around it constitute most of the private institutions opened up and have grown manifold in the last two decades.

The authors of the study have stated that the organisations are found to be providing knee-jerk reaction to the situation as of now and yet to come out with a specific policy for downsizing or any other possible options. Even the regulated sectors like education are twisting the rules of payments of its employees which it is akin to do even in normal situations.

They added that the more noteworthy indication from the present study is the transition of the workforce from one sector to the other. It’d be sooner to estimate a precise percentage at this point. However, this study constructs a ground for the high percentage of workforce shifting towards agriculture and allied professions from other sectors. Also, it indicates an increase in urban unemployment to be more than rural unemployment.