Employment woes: A deciding factor in LS polls 2014?

NEW DELHI: About 15 crore youngsters are eligible to vote for the first time in Lok Sabha election this year. The number is higher than total votes polled by any single party in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. Youth may well hold the key to the outcome and for a large number jobs are the biggest issue.

India's labour force is characterized by part-time and seasonal workers, underemployment and factors that restrict many women from joining the labour force. Over 90 per cent continue to work in the unorganized sector, in small, unincorporated and unregistered enterprises that lack basics like a written job contract, paid leave, social security and access to trade unions.

The latest National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report shows in 2011-12 the labour force's size was between 440 million and 484 million.

Unemployment figures range from 11 million to 25 million; unemployment rate between 3 and 5 per cent. But these figures mislead as an earlier NSSO survey in 2009-10 revealed that nearly 26 million of the usually-employed were under-employed: they couldn't find work through the year. Nearly 75 million were invisibly under-employed — 40 million wanted additional work, 35 million alternative livelihoods. World Bank's poverty-headcount ratio shows that in 2010 nearly 69 per cent were earning less than $2 PPP (Rs 37) per day. A majority of these the NSSO counts as employed. Clearly, being employed alone doesn't guarantee a decent life in India.

The employed-yet-poor paradox can be understood by analysing employment categories. In 2011-12, 52 per cent were self-employed, 30 per cent casual labour; only 18 per cent had salaried jobs. Self-employment doesn't indicate a desire to be your own master; it's employment in distress as India doesn't have unemployment benefit schemes.

Interestingly, Gujarat is not the country's best state on any employment parameter. On proportion of workforce with regular jobs, Delhi leads, followed by Goa, Punjab, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and then Gujarat. On creating regular salaried jobs in past five years, Gujarat doesn't outperform others.

Comparison of employment categories with 2004-05 NSSO data suggests that in urban areas regular employment increased by about 15 per cent in Goa, in Andhra (10.5 per cent), Maharashtra (9.6 per cent), Kerala (7 per cent), Haryana (6.9 per cent), Karnataka (6.3 per cent) and Rajasthan (6.1 per cent). In this five-year period, the proportion of Gujarat's urban workforce in regular jobs increased by 4.7 per cent, higher than the all-India figure of 3.8 per cent but much lower than many others. Comparison of 2001 and 2011 census data shows that in the past decade numbers employed through the year increased in absolute numbers by 16 per cent, while marginal workers increased by 34 per cent — more than double the rate of increase of main workers. Further, women workers are under-utilized. Only 23 per cent women aged 15-59 years found daily work. For men, this ratio is 76.2 per cent. Schemes like MGNREGA are a drop in the ocean — it provides work for an average 46 days only.