The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), which was conducted from July 2020 to June 2021, released earlier this year shows that India’s salaried class shrank by 2.7 percentage points during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the survey, the share of Muslims who were earning a regular salary fell from 22.1% in 2018-19 to 17.5% in 2020-21 – a drop of almost 5 percentage points.
Moreover, the share of women fell by a much steeper 4.5 percentage points (from 21.9% in 2018-19 to 17.4% in 2020-21.
In this video, The Wire breaks down what these numbers mean.