It’s 9 am, and Lubna Sayed is setting up her workspace and getting ready for a morning call that is scheduled at 10:45 am. As usual, her mother serves her a Kashmiri Cxot (bread) with Nun Chai (Kashmir’s traditional tea). She takes sips of tea while preparing a presentation for a customer.
Lubna, 25, from Zakura finished her Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering in 2022. Like most of her batchmates, she looked for a government job or a promising private job in her field of expertise. However, due to the unavailability of both, Lubna landed in an insurance advisory company where she has to work from home.
According to the quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), Kashmir’s unemployment rate for people aged 15 years and above in July-September 2024 is 11.8%, much higher than the national average of 6.6%. From 2019 till now, 65% of government posts are lying vacant in various government departments, while there were several recruitment scams in the UT during the period.
“Staying unemployed after pursuing higher qualifications was leading me to stress. I had heard of work-from-home opportunities while I was in my last semester. So I started applying for several posts online, although they were completely off-beat for me,” said Lubna, adding, “Today with this job in hand, I find myself satisfied.”
Many job seekers now also opt for remote work because of their family responsibilities, making it challenging for them to relocate to a different city or country. Working from home allows them to balance their career aspirations with their commitment to family.
Farhaan Bashir, 27, a resident of the Old City of Srinagar was working in Delhi until 2020 and had to shift back to his home town after his parents’ health deteriorated. His father suffered a heart attack, and his mother was diagnosed with COVID-19, only adding to the miseries. He had no option but to come back. “I had to quit my job in Delhi only for my parents because they needed my presence at that crucial phase,” Farhan added.
After things settled down, Farhaan started to apply for MNCs from Kashmir but asked for a work-from-home option. “I got a job, and after 3 months, it was fully remote. I couldn’t ask for more,” rejoices Farhaan. It has been more than three years since then. Farhaan takes care of his family while working remotely for the same company.
The surge in the popularity of remote work can be directly attributed to the global pandemic. When the COVID-19 outbreak hit, one of its most significant impacts was the transformation of the conventional workplace into a remote work environment. Recent surveys also indicate that individuals who were compelled to shift to remote work during pandemic-induced lockdowns now express a preference for the flexibility and convenience of working from home.
A 2023 study by social media management platform Buffer, conducted among more than 3,000 remote workers across the world, found their experience was overwhelmingly positive — 98% said they would recommend remote working over being office-based.
Adiba Amin, a supervisor at a public relations firm in Delhi, shared, “Every employee has grown accustomed to the work-from-home setup. However, given the nature of our work and many similar companies, we were unable to sustain remote work post the COVID outbreak. Surprisingly, several employees chose to resign once they were called back to office,” she explained.
During the pandemic, tech giants like Google were early adopters of remote work, providing employees with cutting-edge virtual collaboration tools and flexible work policies. However, these companies are now shifting gears and requiring employees to come back to the office.
Samid Shah Bazaz, another Kashmiri youth who joined Amazon in 2021 during the COVID era, expressed his sentiments, “I cherished my job and the work culture at Amazon. However, when I was required to relocate to Hyderabad, I had to make a tough choice.”
For Bazaz, his salary was not enough to afford him a good living in Hyderabad. Bazaz had to resign from Amazon but soon, he secured a new job in Kashmir that is entirely remote.
The work-from-home model has changed the nature of the corporate sector in the long run. And adapting to this change seems to be a necessity for companies. Software giant Globant SA earlier this year chose to go completely remote with 30,000 employees in over 33 countries working from home. Moreover, 49 nations now grant visas to allow remote workers — known as digital nomads.
