Employment

• Employment refers to the state of being employed, having a job or occupation, or being engaged in a profession or business.
• A worker is an individual who is engaged in economic activity, whether high or low, temporarily or permanently, and includes those who assist the main workers in these activities.
• Reports on Employment and Unemployment Situation in India are published by the Ministry of Statistics and Planning, Government of India.
• The reports for the year 2015-16 were released on 20/01/2015.
• There has been a change in the structure of the workforce in India.
• In recent years, the growth of employment has decelerated.
• Majority of workers in India are self-employed.
• Government is the major formal sector employer in the country.
• Through various schemes and policies, the government takes initiatives to generate employment directly and indirectly.
• These new jobs are found mostly in the informal sector and the nature of jobs is also mostly casual.
• Casual wage labourers and regular salaried employees together account for less than half the proportion of India’s workforce.
• During post-reform period, India has been witness to employment opportunities in the service sector.
• Disguised unemployment is a common form of unemployment in rural India.
• About three-fifth of India’s workforce depends on agriculture and other allied activities as the major source of livelihood.
• Men particularly rural men, form the major section of workforce in India.
• Many people in rural areas cannot stay at home as their economic condition may not allow them to do so.
• During 2011-12, India had about a 473 million strong workforce, with majority residing in rural areas.
• Women workers are not paid wages in cash or in the form of grains, and at times are not paid at all, hence are not categorised as workers.
• Population is defined as the total number of people who reside in a particular locality at a particular point of time.
• Women workers account for one-third of the rural workforce, but are just one-fifth of the workforce in urban areas.
• The difference in worker-population ratio between urban and rural areas is due to limited resources in rural areas, which limit the ability of people to earn a higher income and participate more in the employment market.
• Women workers carry out works like cooking, fetching water and fuelwood, and participate in farm labour.
• The nature of employment in India is multifaceted, with some getting employment throughout the year, some employed for only a few months in a year, and many workers not getting fair wages for their work.
• If the worker-population ratio for a country is high, it means that the engagement of people is greater, while a low ratio indicates that a very high proportion of its population is not involved directly in economic activities.
• The worker-population ratio for India is 39 per 100 persons, with about 36 per cent in urban areas and 40 per cent in rural areas.
• Worker-population ratio is an indicator used for analysing the employment situation in the country, indicating the proportion of population that is actively contributing to the production of goods and services of a country.
• Self-employed individuals are also considered workers.
• Only those who are paid by an employer for their work are considered workers.
• Men form the majority of workforce in India, accounting for 70 per cent of the workers, while women constitute one-third of the rural workforce and one-fifth of the workforce in urban areas.
• Since the late 1970s, many developing countries, including India, have started paying attention to enterprises and workers in the informal sector as employment in the formal sector is not growing.
• In 2009-2012, there were about 350 million workers in the formal sector and about 300 million in the informal sector.
• Unemployment is a situation where people are looking for jobs but unable to find them.
• Developmental planning envisaged that as the economy grows, more and more workers would become formal sector workers and the proportion of workers engaged in the informal sector would dwindle.
• In India, about 473 million workers are employed in the country, with about 30 million workers in the formal sector and about 443 million in the informal sector.
• People looking for jobs might look for a job through newspapers, friends and relatives, or stand in select areas looking for people to employ them for that day’s work.
• Workers and enterprises in the informal sector do not get regular income; they do not have any protection or regulation from the government.
• The Indian government has initiated the modernisation of informal sector enterprises and provision of social security measures to informal sector workers.
• The majority of the workforce in India is employed in the informal sector, with women constituting only about one-sixth of the formal sector workforce.
• In the informal sector, male workers account for 69 per cent of the workforce.
• Workers in the formal sector earn more than those in the informal sector.