New Delhi: That India is experiencing jobless growth is worrying—well, that’s old news. What’s more alarming is the fact that those who are employed continue to suffer from dangerous and demeaning jobs.
According to the 2018 United Nations Human Development Report (UNHDR), some 77.5 per cent workers in India are under vulnerable employment. This data is way higher than the global average of 42.5 per cent; and if you were to rank India as per this metrics, the country with 51.9 per cent employment to population ratio would hit almost the bottom deck at 180 in a list of 189 countries.
The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) World Employment and Social Outlook report published earlier in January this year predicted that of the 535 million labour force in India in 2019, some 398.6 million would have poor quality jobs.
An estimated 1.4 billion workers were found to be living in vulnerable employment globally in 2017, the report mentioned, and an additional 17 million are expected to join the ranks per year in 2018 and 2019.
Vulnerable employment is often characterised by inadequate earnings, low productivity and difficult conditions of work that undermine workers’ fundamental rights.
The United Nations defines it as the sum of the employment status groups of own account workers and contributing family workers. They are less likely to have formal work arrangements, and are therefore more likely to be subjected to indecent working conditions and lack basic social security.
The report notes that "while there has been strong job creation in some ICT-intensive services, notably in India, a significant portion of the jobs created in the services sector over the past couple of decades have been in traditional low value added services, where informality and vulnerable forms of employment are often dominant."
In general, the incidence of vulnerable employment is highest in the agriculture sector, which employs more than 50 per cent of the total workforce in India. It is followed up by the manufacturing sector, where another 30 million workers suffer from long hours and improper wages.
“The (Central) government should implement the Maharashtra (Rural) Employment Guarantee Scheme all throughout the country and increase public sector expenditure in all areas, more importantly in education and healthcare, to address this problem,” distinguished political economist Amiya Kumar Bagchi said.