Insights from the India Employment Report 2024: Youth, Women, and the Changing Labor Market Landscape
| For Prelims : International Labour Organisation’s (ILO), Unemployment, Labor Market, For Mains : Insights from the India Employment Report 2024 |
Why in News
The latest India Employment Report 2024, jointly released by the Institute for Human Development and the International Labour Organization, highlights significant improvements in labor market indicators despite periods of economic downturn, both preceding and during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In recent years, there have been unexpected enhancements in key labor market metrics such as the labor force participation rate, workforce participation rate, and unemployment rate in India. This comes after a prolonged period of decline from 2000 to 2019. The report underscores concerns regarding unfavorable employment conditions, including a reversal in the slow shift towards non-farm employment, a notable increase in self-employment and unpaid family work, and lower-quality employment opportunities for youth compared to adults. Additionally, it notes stagnant or decreasing wages and earnings.
The report introduces the ’employment condition index,‘
which has shown improvement between 2004-05 and 2021-22. However, some states, such as Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, and UP, have consistently ranked poorly in this index, while others like Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat have consistently performed well.
This index is based on seven labor market outcome indicators, including the percentage of workers in regular formal work, casual laborers, self-employed workers below the poverty line, work participation rate, average monthly earnings of casual laborers, unemployment rate among secondary and above-educated youth, and youth not engaged in employment, education, or training.
Employment Quality
Regarding employment quality, the report highlights a rise in informal employment, with approximately half of the formal sector jobs being informal. Self-employment and unpaid family work, particularly among women, have also increased. The majority of the workforce, around 82%, is engaged in the informal sector, with nearly 90% being informally employed.
Self-employment
Self-employment remains the primary source of employment, accounting for 55.8% in 2022. Casual and regular employment constitute 22.7% and 21.5%, respectively. While the share of self-employment remained relatively stable at around 52% between 2000 and 2019, there was a significant increase in regular employment during this period. However, this trend reversed by 2022, with self-employment rising to 55.8%, and the share of regular employment declining to 21.5%. Casual employment consistently decreased from 33.3% in 2000 to 22.7% in 2022.
This shift was mainly absorbed by the construction and services sectors, whose share of total employment increased from 23% in 2000 to 32% in 2019. In contrast, the share of manufacturing in employment has remained almost unchanged at 12-14%.
However, since 2018-19, this slow transition has either stalled or reversed with the increase in the share of agricultural employment.
Regarding youth employment, there has been an uptick, but concerns persist over the quality of work, particularly for educated young workers.
Youth Employment
While youth employment and underemployment rose between 2000 and 2019, they declined during the pandemic years. Nevertheless, unemployment among youths, especially those with secondary-level or higher education, has worsened over time.
In 2022, the proportion of unemployed youths in the total unemployed population stood at 82.9%. The share of educated youths among all unemployed individuals also rose to 65.7% in 2022 from 54.2% in 2000.
The unemployment rate among educated youths was six times higher for those with secondary education or higher (18.4%) and nine times higher for graduates (29.1%) compared to those who were illiterate (3.4%) in 2022. This discrepancy was more pronounced among educated young women (21.4%) than men (17.5%), particularly among female graduates (34.5%) compared to male graduates (26.4%).
While the unemployment rate among educated youths increased from 23.9% in 2000 to 30.8% in 2019, it dropped to 18.4% in 2022.
Moving forward,
There are five key policy areas for further action:
- Promoting job creation
- Enhancing employment quality
- Addressing labor market inequalities
- Strengthening skills and active labor market policies
- And filling knowledge gaps on labor market patterns and youth employment.
The report also notes the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on employment, highlighting potential disruptions in the outsourcing industry due to AI taking over certain back-office tasks.
Investments and regulations are needed in emerging sectors like care and digital economies, which could provide significant sources of productive employment. Challenges such as job insecurity, irregular wages, and uncertain employment status in gig or platform work need to be addressed.
Economic policies should focus on boosting productive non-farm employment, particularly in the manufacturing sector, as India is expected to add 7-8 million youths annually to the labor force over the next decade. Additionally, more support should be provided to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, including tools such as digitalization and AI, along with a cluster-based approach to manufacturing.
Sources: The Indian Express
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