Employment Trends in India

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-103
Author(s):  
Pradeep Apte ◽  
Medha Deshpande ◽  
Vishal Gaikwad

This article explores the trends in labour force, employment and unemployment from 2000 to 2012 using NSSO data in major Indian states. Most of the states experienced acceleration in employment growth when economic growth was slow during the first quinquennium of the twenty-first century. These trends have reversed during the second quinquennium. The deceleration in growth of employment was driven mainly by decline in female employment in rural areas in almost all the states, and the withdrawal from labour market could not be fully explained in terms of its correlates. This article highlights the need to improve the data on employment and increase its frequency, and also suggests the measures. JEL: J21

2021 ◽  
pp. 001946622110238
Author(s):  
Shantanu De Roy ◽  
Mampi Bose

Indian labour markets are segmented based on caste, gender groups, region, types of workers and types of contractual arrangements. An important feature of the labour markets in India, notwithstanding intersectionalities across segments, is greater access to high-quality work with social security benefits to the privileged sections of the society as compared to the socially oppressed sections, including women. The latter dominate in low-quality, less stable and insecure work in the informal sector.The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures have increased the vulnerability of the informal workers, including the migrant workers. The article analyses the features of rural and urban labour markets, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, that had contributed to vulnerability of the workforce. The analysis was based on the National Statistical Office ( NSO, 2020 )—Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) database of 2018–2019, NSSO (2014)—Report of the Situation of Agricultural Households in India, NSSO (2014)—Employment and Unemployment Survey, Labour Bureau, and the Economic Survey of India. It also analyses the impacts of the pandemic on the rural labour market based on the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) database. Our analysis reveals that the rural labour market in India was more adversely affected by the lockdown measures than the urban counterpart. In the rural areas, there was collapse of non-farm employment and increased participation in agricultural work was largely an outcome of distress. Furthermore, reverse migration of workers had led to sharp decline in remittances, particularly in the eastern Indian states that are largely agrarian and poor. The article advocates policy initiatives that include expansion of the rural employment programmes for providing relief to the poor and working population in India.


Author(s):  
Ian Goldin

‘Why are some countries rich and others poor?’ considers various theories of economic growth, including Robert Solow’s widely used 1956 model, and charts the uneven development of countries around the world from the late nineteenth century, through the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first century. Some countries, such as Japan and South Korea, have seen miraculous economic growth, whereas countries such as Argentina and Uruguay have not experienced expected levels of growth. The factors that affect development trajectories include natural resource endowments, geography, history, institutions, politics, and power. While overall levels of poverty have declined, levels of inequality are rising in almost all countries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Birch ◽  
Alison Preston

1 This article provides an overview of the key features of the labour market in 2019, with historical data providing insight into recent trends. In 2019, the female labour force participation rate reached an all-time high of 61.3%, 10 percentage points lower than the male rate. Disaggregated analysis shows this growth stems from rising participation amongst older women. This, in turn, is underpinned by a growth in feminised sectors of the labour market, notably the Health Care and Social Assistance sector. Since 2000 this sector has contributed 22.6% to total employment growth and at 2019 accounted for 13.5% of the Australian workforce. There has also been a growth in part-time and casual employment over recent years, with the latter now accounting for 25% of all employees. These are concerning developments, with estimates showing that 58.6% of casuals are not guaranteed a minimum number of hours of work in their job. The article notes that wages growth remains below that required to stimulate employment growth, and that a continued focus on conventional labour market indicators has the potential to lead to misguided policy formulation.


2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin O'Brien ◽  
Abbas Valadkhani ◽  
Keith Townsend

Both global and domestic economic growth remained robust in 2007 resulting in historically low unemployment and high labour force participation in Australia. However, these favourable labour force statistics were overshadowed for much of the year by a number of other issues such as the continuing drought, high oil and petrol prices and associated inflation and interest rate pressures, a November federal election, and the first full year of the operation of the Work Choices legislation. This article will address each of these issues by presenting an analysis of the macroeconomy and labour market, and reviewing the labour market implications of the Work Choices legislation in Australia.


1971 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-291
Author(s):  
Archibald Callaway

Unemployment – and underemployment – of large proportions of the labour force is a central factor in almost all of today's developing countries. For many, this situation has steadily worsened despite the achievement during the last decade of relatively high rates of economic growth. Poverty and malaise characterise wide areas of the countryside as well as large sectors of major cities. These problems were explored by the eighth in the series of international conferences on development, sponsored by Cambridge University Overseas Development Committee. Key questions were posed: What are the facts of unemployment and underemployment? What are its causes? What measures should be taken to generate more employment opportunities and to reduce, simultaneously, the more glaring inequalities in the distribution of income?


Ekonomia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Wioletta Nowak

The paper discusses the extent of inclusiveness of economic growth in the ten fastest-growing Asian countries between 2001 and 2019. It focuses on essential aspects of inclusiveness i.e. on poverty and inequality reduction and development of employment opportunities for poor people. The study is based on the data retrieved from the ILOSTAT and World Bank Database. In the twenty-first century, the fastest growing countries in Asia have significantly reduced poverty. However, the benefits of rapid economic growth in these countries have not been spread evenly. Income inequality has been steadily increasing in some Asian societies. Besides, economic growth in the fastest-growing countries in Asia has not been always accompanied by an increase in employment opportunities. Although unemployment is not a problem for the large part of the population in Asian countries, a lot of workers are still in extreme or moderate working poverty. Reasons behind the working poor in the fastest-growing Asian countries vary slightly from country to country but the most important are: jobless growth, high vulnerable employment in agriculture and a large part of the non-agricultural labour force working in the informal sector.


1963 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 594-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Irshad Khan

The purpose of this paper is to examine some characteristics of the urban industrial labour-force. The study of industrial labour-force in Karachi, a newly developed industrial centre1, may reveal how industrial labour-force is built up during the process of industrialization and economic growth. Information was collected on the occupational and industrial structure of employment, wage differentials by size of firm and skill mix, characteristics of the labour market, the mobility of workers, permanence of the worker's job, labour turnover, and absenteeism of Karachi's industrial labour-force. The source of the data for this study is an industrial survey in Karachi conducted by the Institute of Development Economics in 19592. The sample for this survey consisted of 530 establishments in four industries (textiles, light engineering, plastics, and leather and leather goods); 534 workers were also interviewed separately for collecting information on various aspects of labour. The sample covered about 50 per cent of the establishments employing more than 20 workers (all the firms employing more than 100 workers were included in the sample) and 4 per cent of the establishments employing less than 20 workers3. The sample thus achieved better coverage of large-scale firms. The sample of 534 workers with which we are working is 1.3 per cent of the labour force of the sampled firms and less than one per cent of the total labour force in these industries.


1992 ◽  
Vol 31 (4II) ◽  
pp. 803-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ghaffar Chaudhry ◽  
Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry

Trends in rural employment and wages are important in a number of ways. For example, a steady growth of job opportunities is a precondition for productive employment of labour force under rapid growth of population. Rising real wages of the working class would be essential for incessant improvements ih the standard of living of the masses. Lack of sufficient employment opportunities in rural areas together with the consequent stagnating (even declining) wages may be a potential cause of mass movement of rural labour to urban areas and attendant formidable economy-wide problems. Similarly, aggregate growth rates of employment and wages in contrast with those in productive sectors have an important bearing on trends in income distribution and poverty. Rapid growth of population, predominance of rural sector and a general lack of studies on rural labour market conditions in less developed countries, including Pakistan, call for a study such as the present one, which explores the trends of rural employment and wages in Pakistan. The paper carries four sections. Section 1 surveys the present state of the rural labour market. Section 2 reports trends in rural employment and discusses the various factors underlying those trends. Employment situation being the basic determinant, wage trends, especially those in agriculture, are highlighted in Section 3. Section 4 summarises the findings of the study and in their light makes some policy recommendations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Karamessini

<p>The current economic crisis in Greece has<br />produced a dramatic fall in male and female<br />employment and driven unemployment to<br />historically unprecedented levels. This article<br />compares gender differences in the labour<br />market impact of the current crisis with those<br />of the three previous recessions: 1974, 1980-83,<br />1990-1993. We have found large discrepancies in<br />the gender impact between the four recessions.<br />These are due to differences in their nature and<br />duration, the sectors and industries hit each<br />time and the trends of women’s labour force<br />participation before the eruption of the crisis.<br />The structural nature of the current crisis and the<br />negative repercussions of the deep and prolonged<br />recession on the services sector that concentrates<br />the great bulk of female employment explain<br />why the gendered labour market impact of the<br />current crisis is different from that of previous<br />recessions. Male employment has been more<br />hit than female employment until now, but<br />the spread of the recession to services reversed<br />the long term trend of increase in the female<br />employment rate. By contrast, in all three<br />previous recessions, the tertiary sector had played<br />a protective, compensating and enhancing role<br />for women’s employment.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-108
Author(s):  
Aishwarya Bhuta ◽  
Mridula Muralidharan

Since the 1990s, India has been witnessing a downward trend in female labour force participation (FLFP). Feminist economists have argued that the invisible labour of unpaid household work is quintessential for the social reproduction of the labour force. Time-use statistics can be useful for estimating the value of unpaid work and lead policy responses towards increasing FLFP. This study analyses the report on Time Use in India-2019 to draw insights from data on women’s disproportionate burden of unpaid domestic and caregiving services. It is argued that this has implications for their participation in the labour market. The patriarchal structure of the family pushes the onus of domestic labour on women. This confines them to home-based, poorly remunerated and informal work, or excludes them from the labour market. Interventions in the form of generating non-agricultural job opportunities in rural areas, establishing infrastructural support mechanisms in workplaces and encouraging female education and employment can not only stimulate FLFP but also help to address the crisis of jobless growth.


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