The Lockdown in India was declared on 24th March 2020. Thousands of people did not know at that time that this complete lockdown would last for almost 8-9 months which was initially declared for only 3 weeks. The industries, schools, colleges, malls, food outlets were closed for these 8 months. The livelihood of thousands of people was affected in this period. People were sometimes not able to give money for the material required for their one-time meal. and the worst affected were the people doing shop floor work.
The Economy of the whole world came to a standstill and then began to decline gradually in the coming months. The people were afraid and were staying in their homes with their families with the fear of getting affected by this virus. The governments of various countries had to spend thousands and crores of capital for making necessary provisions for the well-being of the public. These governments also came to a verge of capital inefficiency because, their sources of income such as Public Transport, Post Offices, and other facilities were merely used by the Public as they choose to stay at home in this Pandemic.
Industries were also greatly affected in this period of Lockdown. Export, Finance, Capital Income, Production, Transport were greatly affected because of the unavailability of workers and continuous compulsory restrictions imposed by the state government. The biggest setback was seen in the Small, Medium, and production industries where the workers were working on the shop floor for achieving the desired needs of the industry.
Some industries in this category did not have Automatic or Semi-Automatic machines due to that, they had to compulsory have a temporary or permanent shut down due to the unavailability of workers who migrated to their hometown in this pandemic. The shop floor work in this period was greatly affected in the Non-Automated and Semi-Automated Industries. Some industries had workers available to work but, due to the compulsory restriction imposed by the state government.
Due to the unavailability of a complete number of workers the machines were not able to have a full-fledged start which resulted in an incomplete production chain and thus having no production resulting in a shutdown. Due to the incompatibility of the Small and Medium Scale industries for products that were the major contributors to the Indian Economy, the Indian Economy suffered very badly in these 8-9 months.
Now the situation of the pandemic is under control; thousands of migrated workers are now coming to their place of work with the virtue of earning money and giving a good, healthy, and safe life for their family. The industries are opening in this due course but, are gain compliance to some re-assessed norms given by the state governments. There is now a continuous movement of the machinery in these Small and Medium Scale Industries. But the times have changed now; thousands of people have lost their jobs due to the automation occurring in these industries. The Shop Floorwork is now reforming to the remote work method. The remote work method goes hand in hand with automation. The future of Shop Floor Work as stated by the following points which are given as follows:-
- The workers on the shop floor are now going to lose jobs because of the increase in automation.
- The Capital Income of these shop floor workers will reduce greatly because of the government norms that say about half of the staff working in a shift at a time.
- The remaining shop floor workers have their jobs at stake if they do not get acquainted with stuff such as Computers, Programming, and Robotics due to the increasing automation.
- The shop floor will more look like an automated machine room with all automatic programmable machines being installed.
- The shop floor workers must now get themselves acquainted office working environment surrounded with computers and with automatic programming with codes, domains, etc.
- The shop floor workers may now also work remotely that is, they will have just supply the program to the machine and the machine will complete their work further.
- The best news is that besides all this automation, the workers will have a permanent job, good salary provided they are acquainted with Computers, Programming, Automation, and Robotics.
From all these data given above, we can say that the shop floor workers and their families have suffered a lot during this pandemic but now they also have a great future assured if they fulfil the needs of the Industry. The Sun has now risen and shining brightly upon these workers who are the backbone of the Indian Economy and Modern Industries.
