mumbai over 10 million indians have lost their jobs because of the second wave of covid19 and around 97 per cent of households incomes have declined since the beginning of the pandemic last year centre for monitoring indian economy cmie chief executive mahesh vyas said on mondaythe unemployment rate measured by the thinktank is expected to come at 12 per cent at the end of may as against 8 per cent in april vyas told pti adding this signifies that about 10 million or 1 crore indians have lost jobs in this periodstating that the main reason for the job losses is mainly the second wave of covid19 infections vyas said as the economy opens up part of the problem will be solved but not entirelyhe explained that people who lose jobs find it hard to get employment specifying that while the informal sector jobs come back quickly the formal sector and better quality job opportunities take up to a year to come backunemployment rate had touched a record high of 235 per cent in may 2020 because of the national lockdown many experts opine that the second wave of infections has peaked and states will slowly start to ease the economic activityimpacting restrictions in a calibrated fashionvyas further said an unemployment rate of 34 per cent should be considered as normal for the indian economy hinting that the unemployment number will have to decline for longer before the situation improveshe said cmie has completed a nationwide survey of 175 lakh households in april which throws up worrying trends on income generation during the last one year which has witnessed two waves of the pandemiconly 3 per cent of those polled said they have witnessed an increase in incomes while 55 per cent said their incomes have declined he saidan additional 42 per cent of the people said their incomes remained the same as that in the yearago periodif we adjust for inflation we find that 97 per cent of the households in the country have witnessed a decline in incomes during the pandemic he pointed outthe labour participation rate or the percentage of the working age population which is in the market has come down to 40 per cent as of now from the prepandemic levels of 425 per cent he added