ASSOCIATED PRESS People walk through a gate at government run Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad, March 6, 2020.

Hyderabad, TELANGANA — On March 20, S* lost her job at the Hyderabad office of Techolution, a New York-based global technology business consultancy. S is five months pregnant and had just returned to work after a short leave of absence to deal with pregnancy-related complications. Techolution laid off at least 20 of her co-workers that day citing a market slowdown due to the global coronavirus pandemic, according to three employees who spoke to HuffPost India. “She was sacked the evening she reported back to work,” another Techolution worker laid-off that day told HuffPost India. “She was sacked even after she informed the company that she would be able to work till the eighth month of her pregnancy.” Techolution, a 5-year-old company with offices in NYC, Hyderabad, Singapore, Mauritius and Indonesia, did not reply to a HuffPost India email requesting comment. S declined to comment on this story beyond confirming that she had been laid-off. HuffPost India is withholding the names of all employees quoted in this piece to protect their future employment prospects. The novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has infected almost half a million people across the world, and shuttered businesses across the globe. Economists expect the ensuing disruption to trigger an economic crisis rivalling the 2008 recession.

In India, currently under a 21 day national lockdown, politicians—ranging from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Chief Ministers of every state—have urged companies to protect workers. Thus far, India has reported 724 cases of the coronavirus and 17 deaths — far fewer than countries such as China, Spain, Italy and the United States. But the Techolution lay-offs illustrate that the economic effects of the global economic slowdown will likely affect India nonetheless. Hyderabad’s IT industry employs over 500,000 workers — most of whom service multinational companies with headquarters scattered across the globe. As these companies scramble to protect their balance sheets by cutting costs, the remote workers in India — who are often employed by third-party service providers — fear they may be the first to go. Telangana’s IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan told HuffPost India the state government will counselcompanies not to lay-off employees at this difficult time when jobs are impossible to come by. “Given the extraordinary circumstances, no company should retrench now for whatever reasons because the employees will not be able to find work elsewhere,” Ranjan said, even as he conceded that the month of March, when the Indian financial year closes, is when companies plan performance reviews and retrenchments. “We will counsel the company and ask them to put a halt on retrenchments once this case officially comes to our notice.” Ranjan said, referring to the Techolution lay-offs. “ “We have not come across mass retrenchments as of now. We advise the companies to keep their staff on the payroll during this time.” Forum of IT Professionals (ForIT), a 15 year-old forum of tech workers, said it will demand that the state government issue guidelines preventing IT companies from sacking employees during the national lockdown — currently expected to last till April 14 2020. Remote Work But Not From Home India’s IT companies built a multi-billion dollar industry by pioneering innovative ways for Western companies to move business processes to remote workers based in cities like Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Yet, as the global coronavirus pandemic forces a whole spectrum of people to work from home, IT workers must still report to their offices everyday as many companies are bound by rigorous data-security norms that make it difficult for employees to log in using personal devices on unsecured internet connections.