ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

EmploymentSubscribe to Employment

Slowdown Dents the Quality of Employment

Increased dependence on agriculture and self-employment points to the growing deficit in decent work.

Political Aspects of ‘Freebies’

The attempts to disparate the state governments’ expenditure on subsidies by the votaries of the neo-liberal fiscal regime, do not stand the scrutiny of facts and reason. The use of terms like “freebies” and “revadi culture” is an assault by the state-capital nexus on the lives of millions of working people, by keeping them vulnerable in order to discipline them, as an integral part of the neo-liberal agenda.

How COVID-19 Deepened the Gender Fault Lines in India’s Labour Markets

India has witnessed low levels of women’s labour force participation over the last four decades, with gaps of nearly 40 percentage points between the proportion of men and women in the labour force. Recent high-frequency data shows that COVID-19-induced lockdowns have had a disproportionate impact on women’s employment. Women bore the immediate impact of lockdowns, with 37.1% losing jobs (versus 27.7% men) in April 2020 and forming 73% of job losses in April 2021. Employment recovery has been slower for women. Prevailing sociocultural factors such as the increased burden of unpaid domestic work, gender digital divides, mobility restrictions, and the lack of institutional support at workplaces are discouraging women’s return to work. Even in January 2022, women’s labour force is 9.4% lower than January 2020 versus 1.6% for men. In this scenario, governments can support through gender-sensitive job-creation plans to expand women’s employment in the public and micro, small and medium enterprise sectors, and incentivise women’s entrepreneurship.

The Periodic Labour Force Survey and the Estimate of the Socio-economic Inequalities

A new system of data collection on issues pertaining to labour and employment, called the Periodic Labour Force Survey, replacing the very comprehensive and detailed surveys on the employment and unemployment situation, also known as quinquennial surveys, was introduced in India in 2017. This paper is an attempt to highlight the effects of the modified sampling methods adopted in the PLFS on data outcomes and inconsistencies. Compared to the EUS survey, the determining criteria used in the PLFS for classifying households across various socio-economic strata seem to be irrational, less comprehensive, and technically incorrect. A fundamental change in the basis of sample selection introduced with the PLFS makes it incomparable to the earlier surveys.

Is the Employment Situation Improving?

Within regular protected employment, there can be a greater degree of regularity and deeper protection than the minimum definition offers. This very idea is explored to take a view on the evolution of internal structure of this employment form.

Occupation, Earning, and Gender

This study analyses the employment distribution of the working-age women by occupations across their activities in usual principal status in the Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017–18 by taking into account the household-specific factors and workers’ personal characteristics by using a multinomial logit model. The study infers that gender differences in returns to schooling are in favour of female workers, but they earned less than male workers in almost every occupation and employment status. The effect of education is stronger in selecting high-paying jobs.

 

Wage-led Climate Change Amelioration

A Marxian orientation towards ecology must support an increase in wages and employment and a fall in profits.

Is Decent Work Elusive under Globalisation and 4IR?

The global production chain has entered the phase of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The emerging countries are not immune from the trend of technology adoption either through domestic or international competition. Excessive use of technology has subdued the possibility of creating enough decent jobs for India and other emerging countries. The weakening relationship between economic and employment growth led by intense global competition and technology penetration is likely to complicate the decent employment agenda.

Changes in Uttar Pradesh’s Labour Market Outcomes

This article portrays the trajectory of Uttar Pradesh’s labour market outcomes between 2011 and 2020 based on the employment and unemployment situation and the Periodic Labour Force Survey data. It finds a deepening employment crisis in the state, worse than what is prevailing in the country; this crisis is severe in rural areas and for women, though even men, in comparison to their status in the past, find themselves in a new low. We find absolute declines in labour and workforce in the state with shrinking self and casual employment. There is an increase in regular salaried jobs, both in absolute terms and proportions. The employment crisis has affected people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder more, marking a dangerous form of livelihood crisis in the state.

 

How Reliable Is Labour Market Data in India?

Public perception about the pattern of shock on the employment rate during COVID-19 is based on the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy data, which is widely referred to in public debates, corporate policy-making, and banking sector. The question that crops up then is how reliable is the CMIE data on the labour market? Here, the examination of the employment ratio indicator of the Periodic Labour Force Survey and CMIE is extended to two another very important labour market indicators, that are, labour force participation rate and unemployment rate, and a comparison of the PLFS and CMIE is carried out to look at their trends and association.

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