Indian wages lag behind productivity gains: ILO
The ILO report says all the action on the economic growth front has failed to keep pace with the wage growth.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: CEOs , CFOs and the top executives of companies may be looking at the fastest growth in wages in current times and the government may be focusing on quantity rather than quality of employment generated. But the world’s top body on labour, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has zeroed in on the bleak side of robust growth in trade, investment and output in India and China. The ILO report “Realising Decent Work in Asia” , prepared for the 14th regional meeting being held in Busan (S Korea) between August 29 and September 1, has maintained that all the action on the economic growth front has failed to keep pace with the growth of the labour force.
Among the key decent work challenges identified by the ILO is wage growth lagging behind productivity gains. Both India and Pakistan have experienced a decline in real manufacturing wages since 1990: a significant drop of 22% in India and a drop of 8.5% in Pakistan. India’s wage decline, the report holds, occurred despite an increase in manufacturing labour productivity of over 84% over the same period, indicating deterioration in workers’ livelihoods despite the increasing efficiency of labour.
Increased productivity has come about despite not keeping the longest working hours. India does not figure in the list of Asian countries which top the list of economies in the world with the longest working hours for labour. A large share of people work 50 hours or more a week in these economies and large productivity gains are not translating into substantially shorter work hours.
India figures among the countries in Asia and the Pacific region that have been identified as having made remarkable headway economically and now occupy a “premiere position in the global economy.” However, the most worrying aspect of the job deficit here, as in other growing Asian economies, has been identified by the ILO as the job deficit among young people , who comprise a sizeable chunk of the current population in India and are expected to dominate the demography by 2020.
In 2005, Asia as a whole had over 48%, or 41.6 million, of the world’s young people without work.
Among the key decent work challenges identified by the ILO is wage growth lagging behind productivity gains. Both India and Pakistan have experienced a decline in real manufacturing wages since 1990: a significant drop of 22% in India and a drop of 8.5% in Pakistan. India’s wage decline, the report holds, occurred despite an increase in manufacturing labour productivity of over 84% over the same period, indicating deterioration in workers’ livelihoods despite the increasing efficiency of labour.
Increased productivity has come about despite not keeping the longest working hours. India does not figure in the list of Asian countries which top the list of economies in the world with the longest working hours for labour. A large share of people work 50 hours or more a week in these economies and large productivity gains are not translating into substantially shorter work hours.
India figures among the countries in Asia and the Pacific region that have been identified as having made remarkable headway economically and now occupy a “premiere position in the global economy.” However, the most worrying aspect of the job deficit here, as in other growing Asian economies, has been identified by the ILO as the job deficit among young people , who comprise a sizeable chunk of the current population in India and are expected to dominate the demography by 2020.
In 2005, Asia as a whole had over 48%, or 41.6 million, of the world’s young people without work.
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