By Dr. Gyan Pathak
All expectations of recovery in labour market conditions have shattered. Unemployment rate has risen to 8.4 per cent as the CMIE dashboard shows on July 1, 2023, calculated on the basis of 30 days moving average, and with it deepens the livelihood crisis. There are little jobs in the market, a large share of working population has even stopped searching for employment, while PM Narendra Modi has been trying to appear concerned about the crisis by a stratagem of organizing ‘employment fairs’ and distributing employment letters.
In 2013-14, the unemployment rate in India was only 4.9 per cent, according to the Labour Bureau, a wing of the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, which rose to 6.1 per cent in 2017-18 as per the NSSO data, and now it has reached 8.4 per cent as per the latest CMIE data on July 1, 2023.
The Fourth Annual Employment and Unemployment Survey 2013-14 of the Union Ministry of the Labour and Employment had estimated Labour Force Participation Rate (LPR) to be 52.5 per cent for the fiscal 2012-13 with Worker Population Ratio at 49.9 per cent. LPR in India has been declining at faster rate from 2016-17, the year when PM Modi announced demonetization on November 8, 2016. In that year LPR suffered a sharp decline to 46.2 per cent, due to closure of large number of MSMEs and millions of the units becoming sick, since they depended heavily on cash flow. Further blow to them was rendered next year by the implementation of the GST on July 1, 2017 without preparation.
Now, CMIE has come with fresh data that suggests that LPR declined to 40.1 per cent in 2021-22, and further declined to 39.5 per cent in 2022-23, reaching one of the lowest in the world. The global LPR is estimated to an average 60 per cent. LPR in Indonesia is 67 per cent while in the countries like South Korea and Brazil are around 63-64 per cent, CMIE analysis has mentioned.
A sharp decline in Indian workforce was seen during the pandemic when the workforce declined from 442 million in 2019-20 to 424 million in 2020-21. This recovered to 439 million in 2022-23 but was still lower than the pre-pandemic level. One of the largest decline has been of female workers whose share has fallen from 15 per cent in 2016-17 to 8.8 per cent in 2022-23. The data cited by the CMIE analysis suggested that around 90 per cent of women in their working age are out of India’s labour force.
On the face of it, the Union Minister of Labour of Employment Bhupendra Yadav has recently claimed that in the last nine years under PM Narendra Modi since 2014, India has generated massive number of jobs. In reality, they have been able to create only 1.25 crore jobs during last 9 years, as claimed by himself, which was much below the requirement of 2 crore jobs every year, since that much number of people enter every year in the job market in the country.
It is clear that after becoming prime minister of the country PM Modi has backtracked from his own promises made during the election campaigns before Lok Sabha poll 2014, of giving “works with dignity to all hands”. However, informal low-quality jobs remain above 90 per cent, while majority of the working age population are out of work. Around 60.5 per cent of the workforce are out of work at present. The male working population out of work are about 31 per cent while female working population out of work are about 90 per cent. Workers in informal jobs have no social security coverage.
Long back in 2015, Indian Labour Conference, the highest tripartite body in the country on labour policies had recommended for formulating National Employment Policy (NEP), which the Modi government had agreed to, but has backtracked on it. Centre has neither worked for NEP nor has any plan to do so, according to information furnished by the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment in the Parliament of India.
The ILO and the UN has been urging the governments all over the world to make development policies human centred. Adopting such policies were necessary to reduce human predicaments as well as avoiding public unrest as per the ILO and UN warning. However, PM Modi seems to be ignoring the advice in favour of profit-oriented development policies that is nothing but crony capitalism if the profit of 20 top companies of India is of any indication that are bagging 70 per cent of the entire profit of the county, according to a recent report.
India’s economy is being projected with fastest growing economy tag apart from the fifth largest economy, which has nothing to do with common people and their sufferings. The country is pursuing jobless growth under PM Modi is evident, which is without compassion for the suffering majority. India had 134 million people under International Poverty line in 2019, ie living under $2.15 earning a day, according to the latest SDG Atlas of the World Bank, and the number has considerably increased since then due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which added another 70 million into extreme poverty globally. India is home to largest number of poor in the world. India seems to miss no poverty target by 2030. The Atlas also shows that 973 million people in the country were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2021, which was over 68.5 per cent of the present population. Situation has worsened since then due to further increase in joblessness, price rise, and inflation.
It is in this backdrop, the sharp rise in unemployment in the country and the consequent drying up of sources of livelihood, presents a frightening picture, that should attract the attention of all who are sensitive enough about human sufferings. Modi government must change its economic policies to save the people by making them human centred rather than pursuing jobless growth strategy for accumulation of wealth into few hands. (IPA Service)
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