Over 70% of MSMEs plan to cut jobs: AIMO

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jun 5, 2020

Over 70% of micro, small, and medium enterprises plan to cut back on jobs to keep business going, as do 40% of corporate businesses, the All India Manufacturers Organisation reported in its latest survey.

 
Less than 20% of the 46,000 respondents to the AIMO’s latest survey said that they will not reduce their workforce following lockdown, ET Bureau reported. The survey showed that, as businesses begin to reopen during the government’s ‘Unlock’ plan to ease lockdown, unemployment is set to continue to rise and recruitment is expected to be frozen for the foreseeable future.
 
“The extent of the job loss will be more clearer by the end of August 2020, as most of the respondents were in process of gauging how many of their labour will return and also they are currently gauging the optimum employee strength required to sustain their business in the near future,” the AIMO’s past president K E Raghunathan said in a statement, ET Bureau reported. 

Around 36% of self-employed business people who participated in the AIMO survey stated that their biggest concern was their ability to pay their equated monthly instalments, especially as some had still not received payment for work already completed. 
 
“The job market has also tanked with most companies freezing their recruitments for the near term,” the AIMO’s treasurer Radhakrishnan said, ET Bureau reported. “The future of their livelihood and the existence of the families that depend on them is in a very precarious position for most of the MSME entrepreneurs.”
 
The Union Government’s reopening plan ‘Unlock 1.0’ began on Monday and will see more organisations and spaces slowly reopen. As of Friday afternoon, India counts 227,029 confirmed coronavirus cases with 6,363 fatalities.