New RBI Study Finds More Than 50% Of Indians Feel Job Scene Is Getting Worse

With the global economic slowdown beginning to affect India, slowly but steadily, one wonders, to what extent has the Indian economy already been affected? While on the one hand are the deniers of the fact that there’s no such economic slowdown impacting the various sectors of one of the most renowned economies in the world, the numbers tend to point to a harsher reality out there, on the other hand.

And to that regard, perhaps it makes sense to pay some heed to what a latest RBI study suggests. Apparently, according to the latest RBI study, hundreds of thousands of Indians feel that the job scene is getting a lot worse.

Now a question arises. Just what proportion of Indians actually feel that the job scene in the world’s largest democracy is getting worse out there?

To that end, it’s worthwhile to note that the RBI study points to a grim reality with over 50% of Indians feeling that the job scene in the country is getting really tough out there. But that said, there are also other highlights that are worth taking into consideration from the RBI study.

1. It’s not for the first time that such a large majority of Indians contend with the worsening of the job scenario. The last time that a similar survey was conducted was back in 2012. This index came into being in September 2012.

2. What’s rather telling is the fact that despite over 50% of the populace feeling that the job situation is slowly worsening in India, a majority among them- around 53%- also feel that an increase in income is on the cards in the very next year, i.e., 2020.

In addition to the above, the RBI study also highlighted a key finding for the next year. As for the coming year- the study suggested- that 33.4% of the people feel that the worse is yet to come and could be expected around the next year.

Furthermore, when contacted about their own income, as many as 26.7% felt that their own income decreased. A similar feeling, although, was last recorded a while back in November 2017 when around a high proportion of the respondents- around 28%- felt that their income had dropped.

The above said, the Times of India, among the country’s widely-read national publications, happened to elaborate on the RBI study and published the following insights:

The perceptions about the overall economic situation also seem to be influencing people’s spending choices, with the proportions of those reporting that their spending on non-essential items had gone down or had remained the same being the highest since Sep 2015, from which month this data is available.

For the first time, over a quarter of those surveyed (26%) said their spending on non-essentials would go down in the coming year.

That’s bad news for an economy already struggling to cope with a demand crunch.

Interestingly, the perception is that spending on essentials is already higher than it used to be and will only increase in the year ahead. When taken in conjunction with the perception on inflation, this could explain why people think they are spending less on the discretionary items and are even likely to continue doing so in the course of the future.