‘Don’t Come In’: How It Feels to Be Fired, As Unemployment Deepens

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.

“When you work at some place for about 22 years, then that place becomes like your family and to lose that after 22 years, it is like losing your family.”

Captain Asim Valiani

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.

“After working there for 8 years, they told me to submit my ID and leave.”

Rajesh*

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.”

“When someone throws you out of the organisation, it feels bad because it’s a bad thing on your resume.”

Honey Bhargava 

For some automobile factory workers, the financial cost took precedence over any other negative feelings.

“The contractor says we will get our salaries after the 18th. We go running on the 19th, we don’t even get our payment, they’ve held our payments up.”

Sunil*

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.

“The airline always taught us how to deal with difficult situations, but it never taught us how to deal without the airline itself.”

Captain Kaiser Ahemdabadi