The example of India may suffice the argument. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 about 84 per cent of the households suffered significant decline in income with tremendous loss of lives and livelihoods, while the billionaires prospered and their combined fortunes more than doubled according to the Oxfam India report “Inequality Kills: India Supplement 2022”. The number of billionaires also grew by 39 per cent. The share of bottom 50 per cent of the population in national wealth was mere 6 per cent in 2021. The policy stance of the government clearly favoured the crony capitalists which can be seen even in the Forbes list that reported the 100 richest Indians having wealth over haft a trillion USD. It was the result of the collapse of the labour market with lockdown of the economy. Employment registered biggest fall in the last two years in June while unemployment situation remains grim at about 6.94 per cent on August 1, as per CMIE data.

Most of the countries in the world saw joblessness during the pandemic, but India’s situation is grimmer than most countries in the world with only 2 per cent of the workforce with secure formal jobs with access to social security and with written contracts of more than three years. Only 9 per cent of the workforce in the country is in formal jobs with access to at least one social security provision. The rest are informal workers with no security of jobs, millions working at less than minimum wages, and millions claiming doing own works are actually concealed unemployment.

Labour market of only advanced countries recovered the loss of jobs and earnings to a great extent almost to the pre-pandemic level, however, the rest of the world is still reeling under the crisis of joblessness. Inequality has been on the rise even in the advanced countries. The latest ILO monitor has opined that though a sharp increase in job vacancies was witnessed in advanced countries at the end of 2021 and in the beginning of 2022, there is no strong evidence that labour markets are overheated, as the pool of unemployed and underutilize labour continues to be considerable in most of the advanced countries while developing economies continue to suffer significant labour market slack.

There is a great divergence in employment and labour income. The overall global data that says that global labour income has surpassed its pre-crisis level by 0.9 per cent actually conceals the considerable disparities, since it included the high-income countries where employment had returned to pre-crisis levels or even exceeded in majority of them by the end of 2021. Employment deficit persisted in most of the middle income countries (MICs), and it must be kept in mind that three out of five workers lived in these countries.

Globally, the number of hours worked in the world fell in the first quarter of 2022 and remained 3.8 per cent below the level of the fourth quarter of 2019 – and that is equivalent to the loss of 112 million full-time jobs, showing a significant setback in the global labour market recovery. The latest ILO Monitor on the World of Work has warned that the heightened turbulence and monetary policy tightening is likely to have broader impact in months to come.

Inequalities between and within countries is hampering the progress towards making the labour market more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient. Quality employment has been becoming scarce due to government’s push for the policies that encourages gig and informal economy where there is little or no social security coverage for the workforce. No equitable or neutral position is there in the policies, most of which are slanting towards the employer providing them too much upper hand against the employees, an instrument the crony capitalists are using for too much profiteering and exploitation of labour.

Global inflation, chiefly driven by increase in food and energy prices and severe supply disruption after February 2022 mainly as a result of Russian aggression on Ukraine and aggravated by policies away from the Human Centred Recovery, has been exacerbating the predicaments of the labour market. It has added further risks to the recovery and an erosion of real incomes for workers and their families has become a reality. In the absence of commensurate wage increases, aggregated demand could fall significantly, and in so doing further threaten economic growth and employment. Cost of inputs for employers rising enforcing them to curtail in number of employees, reduced income for the workforce creates demand crisis which with supply crisis completes the vicious circle.

The crisis of the climate change has also been impacting the labour market condition, and it has been agreed by all national and international organizations including the UN and ILO that the world must shift to human centred green recovery and green employment. Promoting this has a very high potential for the creation of quality employment, but it could be realized only if the right policies are adopted, ILO has been emphasizing ever since COVID-19 crisis hast taken the world under its grip. However, the world will need ensuring a just transition for the workers who will be affected in the process. Large investment would be required in developing the skills that would enable the workforce to harness the opportunities in the fast changing world of work.

Protection or worker is paramount without whose contribution no profit can be imagined. The word ‘contribution’ must not be substituted with ‘exploitation’ since it will strengthened the vicious circle into which the labour market has fallen today. Governments and employers must provided adequate social protection to workforce, appropriated regulations must be actively promoted for equitable growth of both the employers and employees, and public services must be improved for decent work for all in rapidly changing circumstances.

It is more important to prevent social unrest as we have been witnessing in several parts of the world, both in developed and developing countries. Trade unionism has suffered in the last few decades and their membership has been going down over time, and with that trade unions’ abilities to organize workers for their protection. Violation of trade union rights are widespread, say ILO, which it finds dangerous for equitable development of the labour market. Obviously, trade unions need to reinvent themselves to be able to serve the workers and protect them against the onslaught of crony capitalism.

Workforce are becoming restive across the world. A wave of strikes is sweeping Britain and spreading fast in European Countries and across the Atlantic to the US. India has also been hit by strikes for the last two years where Central Trade Unions held numerous protest demonstrations along with three general strike against the government’s labour reform and the four labour codes that they call anti-labour and pro-corporate, and they are preparing for stiffer protest. It may be just revival of Global trade unionism against the pro-capitalist policies. Trouble is brewing for a widespread social unrest that has already been dubbed in Britain as “summer of discontent”. Will it prove again a rise of the working class or will be ruthlessly suppressed? The true answer is concealed in the womb of the future.