The job market scenario in India for the last few years has been quite shaky, to say the least. The pandemic has further complicated that shaky scenario more intensely. Today, the country remains in a critical position, where on the one hand, it is trying to mitigate the risks added by the pandemic in its economy and, on the other hand, trying to bounce back.
On that line of thought, #IMPRI Center for Work and Welfare (CWW), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, Indian Social Institute (ISI), New Delhi, and Counterview organised a #webpolicytalk on Employment and Unemployment Scenario: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?
COVID 19 And The Toll Of The Job Loss
The session was opened by the moderator Prof K R Shyam Sundar, Professor, HRM Area, XLRI—Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur. He reiterated the concerns that the pandemic has brought in the employment-unemployment scenario of the country.
The PLFS (Periodic Labour Force Survey) 2019–2020 reported a substantial rise of 3.5% in workforce participation rates for all workers in both rural and urban India and a sharp rise in the female participation rate. This has been lauded as a remarkable growth that was witnessed in a short-term period of 2 years.
It also witnessed a tremendous degree of stunted workforce participation given the prolonged lockdown imposed. With the resumption of economic activities, the statistics, however, now show a pretty satisfying picture and testify to a recovering economy.
Meanwhile, the data from the trade unions from a more micro perspective shows that the situation is not that rosy as it might be made to see. Many have also questioned the very reliability of the PLFS statistics.
Data And Growth
COVID-19 ushered in its wake a crisis that led to many youths losing their jobs. In this video, a few of them talk about how unemployment had an impact on their lives amidst the pandemic.#reimaginetogether@UNICEFIndia@YuWaahIndia pic.twitter.com/RvjGnV4PnN
— Youth Ki Awaaz (@YouthKiAwaaz) March 30, 2021
The Panelist Dr Radhicka Kapoor, Senior Visiting Fellow, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, added yet another dimension to the topic at hand, that is “how we got here”. She divided her presentation into two sects: one analysing the trends and the second part focusing only on data.
For analysing the trends, Dr Kapoor concentrated on the data from the NSS household survey and the PLFS annual rounds. Dr Kapoor started her analysis from 2004–2005 data because, at that time, India witnessed a stupendous rate of growth, which saw some sluggishness from 2015–2016.
Many attribute the reason as not creating enough jobs. But that is a misguided perception. The unemployment rate should not be the single determining metric to assess the unemployment condition. Labour force participation rate is yet another fundamental factor for the same.
Since 2004–2005 an interesting trend has been the increase of salaried labour force and a decline in the unorganised sector, which showcased the formalisation of the economy.
One of the predominant factors driving these trends has been the nature of structural transformation that India has witnessed since 2005. The decade saw a sharp decline in agricultural contribution in the economy, with the rise of the service sector and the construction sector. This sector-wise change has, however, also cropped up some problems of rehabilitation within the transforming economy.
Education And The Job Sector
Dr Gayathri Vasudevan, Executive Chairperson, LabourNet, Bengaluru, highlighted the changing pattern of educational qualification and its impact on the overall job sector market.
She also underlined the increasing gender parity in the booming construction sector of the economy. In some cases, it is also found that women are totally unaccounted for their work, and the wages or following remunerations are being appropriated by men, even without any contribution.
Thus, this decreasing women’s labour force might also be for not counting them or their work in the labour market. The same trend is noted in the agricultural sector as well.
She also discussed extensively MNREGA, where again the participation of women has bizarrely declined and the men again appropriating the jobs meant conventionally for women. She also provided a new perspective of bringing in service sector jobs within the MNREGA, thereby increasing the overall quality of jobs provided under this scheme.
Dr Vasudevan, while discussing the proportional relationship that exists between the education and job sector, highlighted the group of young people holding college degrees but lacking any sort of skills required for jobs. These groups unable to find jobs in tune complementing their educational backgrounds adds further to the overall unemployment rate.
Thus, Dr Vasudevan emphasised the need to see that we don’t push towards higher education without any proper plans towards guaranteeing employment across the educational spectrum.
Distress-Driven Growth
Dr Ishan Anand, Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School, focused on the analysis of the PLFS data to analyse the employability trend in the job market.
He highlighted three major issues that emerged from the latest PLFS. The first is the decreasing unemployment rate even during the pandemic, increase in the real wage, which was again surprising given the storm that the pandemic threw at the economy, and third is the rise of the female labour participation rate.
In the year 2019–2020, the GDP has been falling, and as other surveys have shown that from the period of 2017–2020, the real wage has been falling. But despite that, the year 2019–2020 saw an unprecedented increase in the participation of the labour force, remaining at an all-time high.
For most of these categories, what is interesting is the involvement of people above 60 years of age in the labour force. Similarly, the share in the self-employed category has significantly risen. All this points to the growth we are witnessing is actually distress-driven growth.
Dr Anand, on that note, also highlighted the menace of educated unemployment, which has been steadily increasing, which saw a jump of 18.1%. If statistics of educated unemployment is dug deeper and its gender and caste composition is analysed, it is found that the deprived section of the economy is facing a disproportionate burden of unemployment.
Similarly, if the statistics of the public sector jobs are looked at, it will be found that the number of permanent jobs has come down drastically in the last 10 years.
Statistics reveal that nearly 6% of the country is unemployed with the highest unemployment rate noted among urban females. It is of urgent importance that adequate jobs are generated in the country and more efficient schemes are implemented to sustain them. #YoungIndiaDemands pic.twitter.com/stxQFmwc8Z
— Youth Ki Awaaz (@YouthKiAwaaz) August 21, 2019
The discussant Dr Rahul Suresh Sapkal, Assistant Professor, Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, began by remarking that the populace has somewhat been normalised with the new unemployment rate of 6.1%.
Apart from unemployment, Dr Sapkal also brought the discussion of the ill implementation of labour laws in India. Moreover, the rampant structural changes in the country have added a further menace of job loss, coupled with unemployment.
During the pandemic, a lot of surveys were done to assess the damage to the labour force. But Dr Sapkal has expressed his reservations on the reliability of the data collected. Statistics published by the Government, such as the PLFS, have also failed to capture the inflow and outflow in the labour market.
He also harped on the necessity to understand employment intensity as a unit of analysis rather than occupation as a unit of analysis to grasp the picture fully. He also mentioned the lack of social and economic mobility in the Indian labour market.
Pertinent Questions And Concluding Remarks
In response to moderator Prof K R Shyam Sundar’s question on the need for affirmative action in the Indian labour market, Dr Anand mentioned that he thinks a disservice would be committed if we move away from the constitutionally established affirmative action.
Dr Vasudevan, in that context, mentioned the lack of assessment of the quality of the jobs created in the country.
In the concluding section, Dr Arjun Kumar posed the issues of the biasness of the PLFS and the NSS data and how far it actually captures the reality of the Indian labour market, which Dr Anand and Dr Vasudevan very categorically explained.
Acknowledgement: Anondeeta Chakraborty is a Research Intern at IMPRI
By Simi Mehta, Arjun Kumar, Anshula Mehta, Rithika Gupta, Swati Solanki, Sakshi Sharda at IMPRI