Self-employed persons were one of the sections that were hit the hardest by the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Data from the State of Working India 2021 report by Azim Premji University showed that between September 2019 and September 2020, there was a reduction of 18 percent in monthly earnings for this category. This was due to the slowdown in economic activity. Earnings of temporary workers dropped 17 percent to Rs 9,441 per month. The least affected were the permanent salaried workers seeing only a 5 percent average reduction in earnings. This might make one have second thoughts about self-employment.
