Hyderabad: The girl who had secured an employment as a software engineer just three months before the lockdown, lost her job. Identified as Sharada, her job loss did not demotivate her and she started selling vegetables to feed her family. The girl was working as a performance and quality assurance professional.
The company where she worked told her they could no longer pay her and apologised to her. As there were no projects in the firm left, they had fired her. Sharada said that she has to feed her parents, and she does not regret selling vegetables.
Teachers and friends are helping her
“I am not feeling sad over selling vegetables. My former school and college mates along with teachers and principal are buying vegetables from me,” Sharada stated. She further said that people including her teachers who taught her during B.Tech program motivated her and did not ask her why she had to take up vegetable business.
The brave girl meeting her ends now has a working experience of 2.5 years in Delhi as a performance analyst. Upon asking ‘why she lost her job’, she said that it is the time of pandemic; the market is down. “There is no harm in doing a menial work as long as you have health,” she said. Sharada elaborating mental health said, “losing a job should not make one depressed and no one should do self harm for this reason.”
Thousands are job less due to Covid-19
A survey conducted by the Azim Premji University has shown heavy job losses for informal and migrant workers in various states.
The disruption in the economy and labour markets in these states is enormous. Livelihoods have been devastated at unprecedented levels during the lockdown and the recovery from this could be slow and very painful, the survey pointed out.
More women (55 per cent) lost jobs as compared to men (35 per cent). More SC/ST workers (58 per cent) lost employment compared to OBC workers (35 per cent). Nearly seven in 10 households had to reduce their food intake during the lockdown.