By Krishna Jha
It was the continuing process of instability in the economy that was more obvious with CMIE data showing the country’s unemployment rate touching a four month high, at 7.9 percent in December, 2021, the urban employment rate rose from 8.21 in November 2021, to 9.3 percent in December 2021. In December, 2022, it was 8.30 per cent, the highest in the current months as indicated by CMIE. The numbers show a significant uncertainty in economic activity that started even before restrictions were imposed when Covid onset became explicit and economic activities faced disaster.
State wise also steady decline was observed so far as economic upward data is concerned. Urban unemployment rate had gone upwards every week to a double digit rate. About those that are employed, among the informal workers, that constitutes 90 percent of the total labour force, they are producing about half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Despite their significant contribution in the GDP, one third of them do not get even the minimum wages which is identified as wages for unskilled labour. Among the total number of the employed, ten percent are working but still destitute, since the earnings are not even sufficient to meet the basics.
Twenty seven percent among the rest of them are not very sure of their jobs which offer them insufficient returns, and hence they have been termed as vulnerable. In final calculations, thirty nine millions are either destitute workers despite the fact that they earn wages, and then there are those who always live under the clouds of uncertainty and hence ‘vulnerable’. There is no minimum wages for both the sections. The biggest share for the migrating workers going back in reverse belongs to Dalits, Adivasis and other backward castes, driven by hunger, a force that cannot be staved off.
The reverse process starts surprisingly from the rich states where the workers come from the poorer ones like Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and many other states looking for respite from agrarian distress, caste and communal discrimination, acute lack of jobs at the source. It was a process seen for the first time in the decades of post independence years. Those were the times when country was going through the Covid days and the workers, after the work places were shut down, started moving in reverse.
It could be explained in terms of search for homely warmth in the days of insufferable anguish, uncertainty of any opening for livelihood, absence of support system, and then always in an anxiety about getting extension of the contract, which anyway was over. About 7.3 lakh workers who returned to Madhya Pradesh, especially in the lockdown period, 60 percent belonged to SC/ST group. The precarious situation continues even after Covid. There are new contracts, but insecurity remains because there is the issue of retrenchment as the small and medium level concerns that hire them, keep facing the brunt. It is not unknown to them that home also is no more the all giving solace, but there is that feeling of inclusivity that gives them rootedness. The fabric of urbanised society of developed states offers them only a temporary status.
According to recent Periodic Labour Force (PLF) survey estimates, among the 15-59 years of age group, which is almost 52 percent of adult population, constitutes the population of toilers that number around 104 millions. Among them 82.7 million are male and 21.7 are female. Across social categories, around 3.2 million (3.07 percent) are those that belong to Scheduled Tribes. Among the Scheduled Castes, there are 15.2 million workers, that are 14. 57 percent of total. In the OBC category, there are 44. 7 million workers that constitute 42.81 percent of those engaged. In the ‘other’ category (OC), there are 41.3 million that is 39.56 percent engaged in the work force. It is significant that only half of the scheduled tribe population is engaged as workers in urban areas. In the formal and informal categories, about 23 percent of urban workers are employed in formal sector and rest of the 77 percent are in the informal sector. In the formal employment, from among the tribal population, only 766.3 thousand or 3.21 percent are engaged while those from scheduled castes, only 12.66 percent, which is 3.02 million are employed in the formal sector.
It is obvious that ST and SC categories are employed in bigger numbers in informal sector. In the case of those working as sweepers, helpers, there is significant concentration of Adivasis and Dalits, who still suffer from the historical segregation, a conservative tradition still occupying a prime space in our society. It is also significant how the employment of urban informal workers is organised across the industrial units. It is usually found that priority list is prepared keeping in view the caste and religion. In agriculture and allied activity, from STs, the involvement is 3.65 percent, for SCs, 14.3 percent, for OBCs, 53.34 percent, for other, 28.71 percent, and then on community based lines, while for Hindus, 79.69 percent, and for Muslims, it is 14.6 percent. Most of the Muslim workers opt for manufacturing and 19.69 percent are engaged in such sectors, while Hindus have a share in the same sector of 75.9 percent. So far as the menial jobs like sanitation and hygiene is concerned, those that mostly shoulder the burden that nobody offers to take up, do not get even the minimum wages.
The data available shows that the lowest rank in the society has been at the receiving end of the lowest wages, far below the minimum wages, of which they have to spend almost 53 percent on food alone, while those with better resources, spend only almost 12 percent. No wonder that for those ‘not haves’, life offers almost nothing to live for. (IPA Service)
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