India passing through phase of jobless growth, says report

Ravi S.Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 16

Indian economy is passing through a phase of “jobless growth” marked by productivity of goods growing several times faster than wages. This has benefited employers far more than workers.

This is the conclusion Bengaluru-based Azim Prem ji University’s Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) has reached in a report, titled “The State of Working India”.

Currently, a 10 per cent increase in GDP results in less than 1 per cent increase in employment. The rate of unemployment among the youth and higher educated has reached 16 per cent, the report says.

The university claims that the report been prepared on the basis of evidence from many different official surveys as well as field studies. 

With regard wages, there has been a steady growth (adjusted for inflation), but much lower that any basic norm in the past decade and a half. It elaborates that most sectors, except agriculture, have reported an increase in real wage by 3 per cent or more annually. 

However, monthly earnings continue to be low in general. As much as 82 per cent of male and 92 per cent of female workers earn less than Rs 10,000 per month.

Although there has been a revival in organised manufacturing, work has also become more precarious in the organised sector. The report attributes it to firms engaging  contractual and trainee workers at less wages.

With regarding manufacturing sector, several industries — especially big employers like knitwear, plastics, and footwear —have delivered on wage growth and job growth. In part this is because workers are no longer being replaced by machines as fast as they were in the 1980 and 1990.

The report points to the glaring caste and gender disparities in the labour market. Presently, women constitute 16 per cent of all service sector workers, but 60 per cent of domestic workers. Similarly, Scheduled Castes form 18.5 per cent of all workers, but 46 per cent of total leather workers.

The silver lining is that the income gap is reducing overtime.

National president of RSS-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh CK Sajinarayana broadly concurs with the findings. “Corrective measures have to be taken and economic issues have to be brought centre-stage in national discourse,” he added.

National Secretary of Left-leaning AITUC Vidya Sagar Giri said the report avers the stand of Central Trade Unions (CTUs). The report suggests, among others, strengthening of MGNREGA. It bats for creating a Universal Basic Services (UBS) programme that invests in education, health, housing, public transport and safety to create jobs, human capital, and public goods.