The second wave of Covid-19 pandemic has left working women and Gen Z increasingly vulnerable to the economic uncertainty in the evolving job market, according to LinkedIn’s findings as part of Workforce Confidence Index.
The survey shows that India’s overall workforce confidence has declined after peaking in early March, with a composite score of +54 down 4 points from +58 in March.
This dip in confidence is reflected strongly across professionals from creative industries such as entertainment, design, and media & communications, who expressed being uncertain about the future of their employers. But as several parts of the economy gradually reopen, professionals from software & IT and hardware & networking are growing increasingly confident about the future of their organisations.
Commenting on the findings, Ashutosh Gupta, country manager, India, LinkedIn, said, “While the year-over-year hiring rate recover from a low of 10% in April to 35% at the end of May, confidence levels of working women and young professionals are amongst the lowest in the workforce today. Twice as many working women are concerned with job availability compared to working men, and 30% of Gen Z professionals worry due to lack of jobs”.
Twice as many working women are worried about availability of jobs, time for job-seeking compared to working men. Findings show that India’s working women are about 2x more likely to be worried about the availability of jobs, their professional network, and time devoted to job seeking, than working men today. This uneven impact has also bruised the financial stability of working women as 1 in 4 (23%) female professionals are concerned about growing expenses or debt, in contrast with just 1 in 10 (13%) working men.
The findings also show that nearly 30% of Gen Z professionals and 26% of millennials are troubled due to lack of jobs, in comparison to 18% of Baby Boomers. The uncertainty widens when it comes to finances as 1 in 4 Gen Z (23%) and millennials (24%) report being more worried about their debt or expenses, when compared to just half as many Boomers (13%) in India today.
As per LinkedIn Labour Market Update, LinkedIn platform data suggests that the average time for fresh graduates to find a new job has also increased by 43% going up from 2 to 2.8 months in 2020 compared to 2019. But while the conversion time has increased, so have remote opportunities, as LinkedIn platform data further suggests that the proportion of entry-level jobs labelled as ‘remote’ posted between Jan-March 2020 have increased by 9x between 2020 and 2021.
The findings were based on the survey responses of 1,891 professionals from May 8 to June 4.
