Why in News?

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has released the results of Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) for 2023-24.

What are the changes in the labour market?

• Employment growth – As per the RBI KLEMS database, 46.7 million jobs were created in FY24 , more than double the 19.1 million in FY23.
• Increase in MSME job  - The MSME Udyam portal has jobs rising from 121 million in 2023 to 201.9 million in 2024.
• Increase in manufacturing employment - The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) FY23 found manufacturing employees increased 7.5%  to 18.4 million from 17.2 million in FY21.

Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) shows the average rate of growth of manufacturing employment rising from 1.15 per annum (pa) over 2017/18-19/20 to 5.8 pa over 2019/20 to 2022/23.

• Increasing diversity in rural jobs – The 2023-24 PLFS annual report shows only 59.8% of usual status rural workers are in agriculture, the rest are in various types of RNFE.
• Rise in rural female labour force participation rate (LFPR)- The share of male workers in agriculture fell to 49.4 per cent and that of female rose to 76.9 per cent.
• Declining share of agri income -  The share of agriculture in average household income fell from 22 % to 8 %.
• Rise of rural manufacturing employment – It has grown at 4 % , exceeding the 3.8 % growth in urban manufacturing.
• Self-employed Wage growth - PLFS shows the self-employed had the largest average wage growth in 2023-24 at 9.6 %, followed by casual workers at 7.4 % , compared with regular wage at only 5.5 %.

What are the reasons for the change?

• Balanced growth – Steady and balanced  high growth of the past few years is delivering more jobs at all levels.
• Migration - As males migrate or shift to rural non-farm employment (RNFE) more women are working.
• Skill development - Income growth tends to come more from moving up the job ladder with skill-growth than from rising average real wages.
• Digital Penetration – Digitalization has created new job opportunities in fields like IT, e-commerce, and digital marketing.
• It has also led to job displacement in traditional sectors due to automation and technological advancements.
• Government contribution – Post-pandemic countercyclical macroeconomic and other supportive polices were able to sustain growth despite external shocks and creating jobs.

What lies ahead?

• Skilling facilities and job-specific training will help staff climb the quality and rewards ladder.
• Policies that proved both feasible and effective post pandemic must be continued to deliver high growth and more jobs.
• Emphasis on upskilling and reskilling to meet the demands of emerging sectors like AI and healthcare

Reference

Businessline | Sustaining change in Indian labour markets