Reduction of Workforce due to Impact of Covid-19 and Occupational Health and Safety Management at the Workplace

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has led to a health crisis as well as a slowdown of industrial activities throughout the world that has resulted in global economic loss. Safety measure of social distancing at workplaces to prevent the spread of coronavirus leads to huge losses especially in the service sector jobs that depend on customerprovider interactions or involve the congregation of a large number of people. Also, the process of equipment and machinery may not function smoothly due to continuous shut down during the lockdown period. As workplaces have been forced to cut down their expenditure and recheck their workforce to maintain social distancing, workers in industries are at a higher risk of losing their jobs. Fewer workforces at the workplace have increased workload on available workers along with insecurity due to pandemic. Under these circumstances, the responsibility of the management is to keep a balance between production, profit and safety at the workplace as well as to keep employees motivated and to cope with the stressful environment. This paper addresses the challenges and the methods to prevent and mitigate occurring of accidents at workplaces which are having reduced workforce and malfunctioning of equipment & machinery as compared to pre-COVID 19 scenarios.