"We can not afford to pay our employees/workers/slaves/bonded labour/staff goes out the howl especially in India, unlike in many other countries.

What is the truth behind this?

Put aside the evolved infotech, banking, insurance and other service sectors where WFH is possible.

Certainly put aside the entitled whining prepaid mainstream media in India which does not add any value to anything.

Let me tell you, if you factor in the notional rental cost of owned real estate (especially ancestral) then the range is from 2% in retail industry to 40%

The 40% is in labour intensive industries like handicrafts and similar. The typical for middle level industries would be 3% to 6%. These are figures that I get from various sources, tax, HR professionals, own experience, and others.

So now we come to people in Indian industry.

5% is way below the usual syphoning of funds that one observes is like a birthright in most promoter and many professional industries in India, whether it is called royalty or marketing or other one-liners in the expense side or NOTES to B/S. 5% of turnover is easy to absorb.

But the typical Indian industrialist, exceptions aside, will not release her paintings, his fancy car, their expensive luxury cars, or even let go their toyboys and mistressesses. And in this day and age, the manpower who they stop paying-know it.

The plant & equipment,

raw materials, intellectual property rights, customers, vendors, everything, are still right where they were. Re-starting will happen 3 weeks, 6 weeks, no big deal. But the first thing they will do before they sell even 20 grams of the quintals of gold salted away? Retrench.

Shame on them. Pick up the declared balance sheet of any listed company and draw the numbers for yourself. Can we expect any financial journalist to do this simple exercise using openly available information?

The numbers I get are - and these have been re-verified

2% in organised retail
3% to 6% in organised manufacturing
6%-10% in garments, leather, small scale semimechanised.
Going up to 40% in labour intensive like agriculture or specific.
Not including mark-up industries like weddings advertising boutiques high fashion luxury etcetc

SO WHAT ARE OUR ENTITLED INDUSTRIALISTS, BUSINESSPERSONS, COMMERCIAL LOBBIES, CHAMBERS of and CONFEDERATIONS of and ASSOCIATIONS of talking about? Has even ONE of them made a consolidated fund for paying employees or similar?

Boltaa hai shaalaa.