By
Nantoo Banerjee
With the growing trend of a more
assorted part of the less-organised services sector emerging as India’s biggest
source of employment, the job quality is becoming not only poor but also more
vulnerable. Interestingly, the trend is noted with concern by the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) in its global report that highlighted, among other
things, the slow “pace of working poverty reduction” in many economies,
including India. The ILO report noted that “overall, progress in reducing
working poverty is too slow to keep pace with the growing labour force in
developing countries, where the number of people in extreme working poverty is
expected to exceed 114 million in 2018, or 40 per cent of all employed people.”
In India, the trend is increasingly
visible in the randomly growing services sector, which account for 54.40
percent of the country’s total GVA or gross value added of Rs.170 lakh crore.
GVA is used for measuring gross regional domestic product and other measures of
the output of entities smaller than a whole economy while GDP is equal to GVA
plus taxes on products minus subsidies. India’s GDP from the services sector is
estimated at $1.5 trillion. With GVA of Rs.50.43 lakh crore, industry sector
contributes only 29.73 percent. The GDP of this sector is estimated at $561
billion. The agriculture and allied sectors’ share of GVA is around 16 per
cent. However, statistical estimates of India’s GDP and GVA differ. For
instance, CIA’s economic intelligence wing put the share of the services sector
in India’s GDP composition in 2017 at 61.5 percent. Industry accounts for 23
per cent and agriculture 14.4 per cent.
Unfortunately, the growth of the
organised sector is nearly stagnating in the country. And, its share of the GDP
is actually shrinking. During the last seven years, the fast growing assorted
part of the unorganised services sector is offering poor and unstable quality
of jobs. The average income in this sector vary from Rs.6,000 to Rs.9,000 per
month. The job is almost entirely unsecured. There is no question of any
provident fund, gratuity or benefits for frequent unemployment linked with such
jobs. Workers are mostly daily wage earners or part-time service providers
although some of the jobs may be of specialised nature — from construction to
e-commerce or event management. According to the ILO, vulnerable employment is
on the rise.
Globally, the significant progress
achieved in the past in reducing vulnerable employment has essentially stalled
since 2012. In 2017, around 42 per cent of workers (or 1.4 billion) worldwide
were estimated to be in vulnerable forms of employment. This share is expected
to remain particularly high in developing and emerging countries, at above 76
per cent and 46 per cent, respectively. The pace of ‘working poverty’ reduction
too has slowed down. Despite economic
growth, 72 percent of workers in South Asia, including India, will have
vulnerable employment by 2019, ILO predicted.
In fact, the global labour market is
witnessing only a weak progress in the area of working poverty. The ILO report
says that in 2017, extreme working poverty remained widespread, with more than
300 million workers in emerging and developing countries having a per capita
household income or consumption of less than US$1.90 (PPP) per day. Overall,
progress in reducing working poverty is too slow to keep pace with the growing
labour force in developing countries. Unemployment in developing countries is
expected to increase by half a million per year in both 2018 and 2019, with the
unemployment rate remaining at around 5.3 per cent. For many developing and
emerging countries, however, persistent poor-quality employment and working
poverty pose the main challenges. A lot of the jobs being created are of poor
quality despite strong economic growth and some 77 percent of workers in India
will have vulnerable employment by 2019.
The report comes amid a jobs debate in
India, which many believe is not creating enough jobs even as some 12 million
people get added to the labour market every year. The report says by 2019,
India will have 18.9 million unemployed people or 9.76 percent of such
population worldwide. Another disturbing trend in India is the government’s
role in promoting working poverty as large number of new appointments in Class
IV and Class III category jobs are being made on contractual basis, offering
very poor salaries with almost no contract end benefits, since 2010.
Although the promise of employment
generation has always been placed high in election manifestoes of almost all
political parties, little attention is paid to such commitments after a
political party or political combine comes to power. Historically, the labour
department has been among the weakest areas of the government function.
Hopefully, the perception of job creation and job quality will change as the
‘working poverty’ and job vulnerability are becoming a huge issue among labour
unions and social scientists in the country. They call for a serious discussion
across the country at all levels.
Such a debate is particularly relevant
as political parties seem to fail to assess the condition of the current labour
market and, instead, promise monthly doles for those trying to make a living
out of agriculture and unorganised jobs of a random or tertiary nature,
especially in the services sector.
The job guarantee, pension guarantee,
unemployment allowance guarantee based on the education and skill levels of the
jobless should go hand in hand with the government’s social programmes in the
areas such as housing and sanitation, education and healthcare for all. They
need to be made uniform for all citizens, irrespective of their castes, creed,
religion and gender. This is possible if the government follows the model of
some of the Scandinavian countries. The salary structure needs to be revamped
so that the huge existing gap between the lowest and highest paid is
considerably reduced and income rungs of employees cut drastically to make this
possible. (IPA Service)
The post India’s ‘Working Poor’ Are Fast Rising appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
