How Covid-19 Proved an Opportunity for Youth in Small-Town India

Young people from small towns are now able to work close to home thanks to co-working spaces that opened up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPSBy Rina MukherjiPUNE, INDIA, Feb 8 2023 (IPS) While a 2017 study by the Confederation of Indian Industry Jones Lang LaSalle India and WeWork noted the potential in India’s co-working segment, it took COVID-19 for people to transition to co-working spaces close to home. The study, Future of Work – The Co-working Revolution, which saw the potential market size of the co-working segment standing at 12-16 million, anticipated 400 million USD in investments by 2018, triggering a 40-50 percent growth in 2017 itself. This was to be driven by India’s emerging start-ups (given that India is currently the world’s largest start-up hub) and India’s freelance workforce (with India having the 2nd largest freelancer workforce in the world, more than 15 million professionals). In 2020, India was hit by the pandemic. Owing to a forced lockdown in operations, many companies faced heavy losses. On resumption, they had to operate at 50 percent capacity (as per government directives), which meant curtailment in operations. Layoffs and salary cuts were invoked to survive. Barring manufacturing operations, the attendance of many employees was deemed unnecessary in the office. This ushered in the work-from-home culture. Salary cuts, and work-from-home options, saw many employees move out of expensive metropolitan centres and retu...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Asia-Pacific COVID-19 Featured Headlines TerraViva United Nations Trade & Investment India IPS UN Bureau IPS UN Bureau Report Source Type: news