The whole world has been suffering due to the pandemic Covid-19. No one is free from the cruelty of the unprecedented disease, from rural to urban, developed to underdeveloped and rich to poor, most nations are under the impact of Covid-19.
The continuous shutdowns and lockdowns, social distance and travel ban are not only affecting the society but greatly affected the world economy. The world economy contracted by 3 per cent in 2020 in comparison to 6 per cent in 2019.
There is a risk of continued economic recession into 2021. The effect is more painful for the economy of south Asian countries whose real economic growth is projected to fall -2.8 percent and of Sub-Sahara African countries the fall is -5.1 per cent (World bank report).
The most vulnerable economic side which is badly affected by the Covid-19 is the employment. Especially the situation is worse for the migrant workers who go outside their State, their region and their country in the hope to get some money, to develop their standard of living. For some migrant workers, it is only for their survival only that they move out.
According to the World Bank report the situation is more painful to the internal migrants than the external migrant workers which are going to lose their jobs.
The remittance flow declined to 20 per cent compared to the last year. The remittance flow to the south Asian region declined by 22 per cent (World Bank report).Though remittance has no direct impact on the national GDP for countries like India($2.8 billion), Bhutan($1.7billion) and Maldives ($0.1 billion) but it has its contribution to the nation market. But the country like Nepal ($27.3 billion) and Pakistan ($7.9billon) whose GDP mostly depend on remittances are affected badly. Among the south Asian region India is the highest in getting remittance ($83.1 billion). It is projected that the country's remittances will by 23 per cent in 2020. The decline in migration has its own consequences on employment.
Due to job loss people move from construction to agricultural sector but such inter sectorial movement may be difficult in Covid-19 case because the sector which requires more workers is in health and IT sector which need skilled and prior training. The lockdown and travel ban hampered mostly the migrant workers than the native workers. The case is even worse for the internal migrants, the people who are idle and suffering from starvation, as the industries, hotels and construction work are stopped there is a shortage of money even for their survival.
Though both Central and State Governments run transport system to help the migrants to get back home, still many of them are not able to return till now. The situation of unemployment is going to hit the world as well as to the national economy. As many people are jobless due halt in production process as well as transport restriction, the economy faces a two- way problem. The host country or State faces the problem of shortage of workers and the native country or State faces the daunting task of providing jobs and rehabilitation to the migrant returnees.