Why in News?
The employment survey, called the Periodic Labour Force Survey (2017-2018) that had been released recently, has causes for concern.
What is Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)?
- PLFS is an initiative aimed at generating estimates of various labour force indicators.
- The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation conducts the survey.
- Quarterly survey (For urban areas only) – Captures only the current weekly status (CWS) data.
- Annual survey (For both rural and urban areas) – Measures both the usual status and CWS.
What are the dimensions used?
- NSSO’s definition of ‘employment’ includes in itself ‘self-employment’ as well as ‘wage employment’.
- Within the category of ‘self-employed’, the survey also counts those engaged in ‘unpaid family labour’.
- Both the locational and gender dimensions are considered.
What does the survey point out?
- As per the survey, the biggest issues are,
- Shrinking share of the labour force
- Rising unemployment
- The rise in overall unemployment has both locational and gender dimensions, with the highest rise witnessed among the urban women.
- When the location dimension is ignored, there is a severe unemployment among men that was higher than among women.
- However, given the sharp decline in women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR), they have been losing out heavily due to,
- Exclusion of women from the labour force and
- Inability to access employment when included in the labour force.
What is the educated unemployment rate?
- Defined as unemployment among those with at least a secondary school certificate, it is at 11.4% (Previous survey’s figure is at 4.9%).
- This issue of educated unemployment, linked with growth and transformative development, has never been as acute as at present.
- The unemployment rates go up as levels of education go up.
- Educated persons have aspirations for specific jobs and hence likely to go through a longer waiting period than their less-educated counterparts.
Who bears the highest burden?
- The burden is the highest among urban women at 19.8% followed by rural women, rural men and urban men.
- Educated unemployment rate - Higher for educated women, when compared to educated men, in both 2012 and 2018 periods (despite a low labour force participation rate).
What is the youth unemployment rate?
- Youth unemployment rate (unemployment among those in the 15-29 years age category) has reached a high 17.8%.
- Women stand more disadvantaged than the men even here, especially urban women, whose unemployment rate of 27.2% is more than double the 2012 figure.
- The rate for urban men at 18.7%, is particularly high as well.
What is the conclusion?
- The trend of ‘jobless growth’ that was till recently confined largely to the organised sector has now spread to other sectors of the economy, making it more generalised.
- This calls for a thorough re-examination of the missing linkages between growth and employment.
- The decline in women’s labour force participation means that India is among the countries with the lowest participation of women in the labour force.
- The country’s inability to absorb the educated into gainful employment is an economic loss and a demoralising experience for both the unemployed and those who are enrolling for higher education.
Source: The Hindu
