If you think that migrants who have returned to their native villages from other states amid the countrywide Covid-19 lockdown are only daily wagers, then think again. Among them are also a sizeable number of professionals and service providers like nutritionists, financial advisors, income tax consultants, sports coaches, gym trainers, yoga teachers and tutors — both men and women.
Of the total 37.61 lakh returnee migrants that the Yogi Adityanath government profiled in June to find them jobs according to their skill sets, some 20.37 lakh were found to be skilled and another 15 lakh unskilled workers. No employment details were available for around 2 lakh migrants.
Profiling the skilled migrants, the state government has put them into 93 categories as per their skill sets, each category has migrants belonging to one particular skill.
A skill-wise employment data, that HT has accessed, prepared by the UP government’s revenue department shows that women account for more than 3.18 lakh of the total workforce and had their share in almost all the skilled works Minors (children between 15 and 18 years) were found to be 1.63 lakh.
The major chunk of over 20 lakh returnee skilled migrants consists of construction labourers (10.8 lakh), which is around 50% of the total skilled workforce, followed by factory workers (1.25 lakh), workers other than construction and factory workers (1.21 lakh) and agriculture labourers (83,344). Next come painters and POP workers (89,681), tailors (66,535), carpenters (65,043) and drivers (46,471).
Among the skilled migrants are also professionals and service providers such as yoga teachers (417), tutors (2674), coaches (1,102), photographers (504), financial advisors (407), income tax consultants (129), dieticians (407), barbers/beauticians (10,013), cooks (23,745), e-commerce employees (18,048), aayahs/child caretakers (7,210), call centre employees (3,481), banking/insurance sector staff (2,275), clerks/accountants (2,516), food processing staff (4,238), IT sector employees (1,237), and retail sector workers (1,346).
The largest chunk of migrants returned to eastern UP districts in two phases in March end and then in May. Districts like Siddharthnagar, Prayagraj, Gonda Maharajganj, Bahraich, Balrampur, Jaunpur, Hardoi, Azamgarh, Basti, and Gorakhpur witnessed a major influx.
The UP government decided to conduct skill mapping of the returnee migrants in a bid to provide jobs to them as per their skill sets if they chose to stay back in the state after the lockdown. “We are trying our best to absorb all the migrants in different sectors, including MGNREGS and construction work, though many of them have gone back,” a senior official said.
