State of Working India 2023 Report

State of Working India 2023 Report

In News:

Recently the “State of Working India 2023” report was published by the Center for Sustainable Employment of Azim Premji University, which provides information about the Indian workforce.
The report analyzes unemployment rates, women’s participation, inter-generational mobility and caste-based workforce mobility.

Important points of the report:

Changes in regular salaried jobs:

The share of workers receiving wages on a regular or monthly basis has increased since 2004, after stagnation since the 1980s.
Between 2004 and 2019, the share of regular wage or salaried workers increased from 18% to 25% for men and from 10% to 25% for women.
Nearly 5 million regular-wage jobs were created annually between 2017 and 2019, up from 3 million before 2017.

Gender Pay Gap:

In 2004, female salaried workers’ earnings were 70% of men’s earnings.
By 2017, this gap had narrowed and women’s income was 76% of men’s total income. Since then this gap has remained stable till the year 2021-22.

Unemployment rate and education status:

The overall unemployment rate declined from 8.7% in 2017-18 to 6.6% in 2021-22.
Graduates under the age of 25 had a high unemployment rate of 42.3%.
The unemployment rate for persons who had completed upper secondary education was 21.4%.

Post-pandemic workforce:

After the Covid-19 pandemic, 60% of women were self-employed, whereas earlier this figure was 50%.
Self-employment income also declined along with the increase in workforce participation.

Intergenerational and caste mobility:

Inter-generational upward mobility increased, indicating socio-economic progress.
Compared to the general castes, the trend of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes still remains quite weak.
In the year 2018, sons of 75.6% of SC/ST men engaged in casual wage work were also involved in casual wage work.
In comparison, the figure was 86.5% in 2004, indicating that sons of casual wage workers belonging to SC/ST category have joined other forms of employment, especially informal regular wage work.
Workforce participation by caste has changed over the years. The share of Scheduled Caste workers in casual wage work has declined significantly, but this decline is more pronounced in the General Caste category.

Challenges faced in job creation and salaried employment:

Economic growth does not create jobs proportionately; Employment generation capacity decreases with GDP growth.
Transition from agriculture to other sectors does not guarantee salaried employment. Jobs with reasonable benefits and good wages are becoming less important.

Initiatives taken by the government to control unemployment: