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Producer: Yagya Sachdeva
Editor: Prashant Chauhan & Deepthi Ramdas
Cameraperson: Rajkumar
"Rude shock”, “It was unbelievable”, “I felt like at least that month, that day, I’d still be working.”
These are slivers of what it feels like to have lost your job. The hard facts lie right in front of us: India’s unemployment rate is at an alarming 6.1 percent. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) job survey for 2017-18 reveals that the unemployment rate is at a 45-year high.
Pink slips are flying around, with layoff season taking over every major industry, be it airlines, media, automobiles, banking and even F&B. But what is it like to lose your job? Well, for Captain Asim Valiani, losing his job felt like losing his family, like losing his sense of belonging.
Captain Asim lost his job as a Jet Airways pilot after the airlines shut down operations in April 2019.
So what do you do when you're told “You don't need to come here tomorrow?” For Rajesh*, it felt like abandonment.
He also said, “I promised myself I would never enter that building again. Nothing could make me do that.”
Losing your job can also lead to resentment.
“Why me?” questioned Honey Bhargava, a media producer who was told to put in her papers after working at her last organisation for a decade. “I felt like I wasn't competent enough.”
For some automobile factory workers, the financial cost took precedence over any other negative feelings.
While few were left with no option but to just move on to the next thing, others are still figuring out ways to cope up with the change.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)