Plight of Employees, Migrant Workers, and the Middle Class in India During COVID-19

The chapter discusses condition of employees, migrant workers, and middle classes in India during COVID-19. How each of them faced the pandemic and how their conditions deteriorated drastically are explored. The chapter highlights how labour laws changed, how training and development programs were shelved, and how millions of employees ended up losing jobs during the pandemic. Impact of job loss and its trickledown effects changed the way the Indian middle class was living and forced them to take up a war of their own. It changed the socio-economic scenario and forced several micro, small, and medium enterprises to close shop. SMEs rose to the challenge and either changed the line of business or adopted innovative business practices so as to survive and sustain. Changed scoio-economic environment further became more complex and volatile as few large corporations, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers, and hospitals in India started considering the pandemic an opportunity to make super normal profits. The Indian middle class rose to the challenge and proved their never say die attitude!