62nd round survey of National Sample Survey Organisation on Employment and Unemployment

Employment and Unemployment Situation in India: 2005-06

“Employment and Unemployment Situation in India: 2005 –06”- Report No.522 based on the data of 62^nd round survey of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, has been released. The field work of the survey was carried out during July 2005-June 2006.. This report provides some broad features of employment and unemployment situation in India and some characteristics associated with them at the national and state levels. Information regarding participation in public works was collected for the first time in this round for persons of age 15 years and above in the rural areas. No separate estimate is provided for small States & UT’s due to small sample size, instead, in such cases the estimates have been provided for a group of States/ UT’s.

The survey covered the whole of the Indian Union except (i) Leh (Ladakh) and Kargil districts of Jammu & Kashmir, (ii) interior villages of Nagaland situated beyond 5 kilometres from the bus routes and (iii) villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remain inaccessible throughout the year. The survey was spread over 4,798 villages and 5,125 urban blocks covering 78,879 households (37,975 in rural areas and 40,904 in urban areas) and enumerating 3,77,377 persons (1,86,571 in rural areas and 1,90,806 in urban areas).

The earlier survey on the same subject was the NSS 61^st round quinquennial survey (2004-05) spread over 7999 villages and 4602 urban blocks covering 1,24,680 households (79,306 in rural areas and 45,374 in urban areas) and enumerating 6,02,833 persons. The main characteristics associated with employment, unemployment are broadly comparable at the national level. However, at State/UT level comparison of the results of this round with the quinquennial round on some of the characteristics needs to be attempted with due caution.

Some of the important findings of the survey contained in this report are given below:

• About 74 per cent of the households belonged to rural India and accounted for nearly 76 per cent of the total population
• In rural areas, about 79 per cent of the households possessed some kind of ‘ration card’. This percentage was lower at 68 in urban areas.

• Literacy rate for population of all ages was about 66 per cent for male and 47 per cent for female, in the rural areas. The corresponding literacy rates for urban areas, were 82 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.
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• About 50 per cent of the persons in the age group 5-29 years were currently attending educational institutions – 49 per cent in rural areas and 53 per cent in urban areas.
• According to the usual status (ps+ss), about 56 per cent of rural males and 31 per cent of rural females belonged to the labour force. The corresponding proportions in the urban areas were 57 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.
• In rural India, more than half of the usually employed (‘all’ workers) were self-employed – 57 per cent among males and nearly 62 per cent among fe­males. The corresponding figures in urban India were 42 for male and 44 for female.
• The percentage of regu­lar wage/salaried employees was relatively lower among females as compared to males in both rural and urban India ( figures being 10 for male and 4 for female in the rural areas, and 42 for male and 40 for female in the urban areas ).
• The proportion of female casual labourer was about 1 percentage point higher than that of male casual labourer in both rural and urban areas.
• In rural India, among ‘all’ usually employed, about 65 per cent of the male and 81 per cent of the female were engaged in the primary sector (excluding mining and quarrying), the proportion in the ‘secondary sector (including mining and quarrying)’ being 17 per cent for male and 12 per cent for female while the proportion in the ‘tertiary’ (NIC-2004 industry division: 50-99) sector –is 18 per cent among male and 7 per cent among female.
• In urban India, the ‘tertiary’ sector engaged about 59 per cent of the male workers while the ‘secondary’ sector accounted for about 34 per cent of the usually employed males. For female, the corresponding figures were lower: 52 and 33, respectively. Proportion of urban male and female employed in the primary sector was 6 percent and 15 percent respectively.
• The average wage rate for regular wage/salaried employees in rural areas was Rs. 138.74 for male and Rs. 87.71 for female. The corresponding wage rates in the urban areas were Rs. 205.81 for the male and Rs. 158.23 for the female.
• In the rural areas, on an average, Rs. 59.29 was earned in a day by a male casual labourer whereas a female casual labourer earned Rs. 37.97 in a day, in the urban areas male casual labourer in earned Rs. 80.70 in a day and a female, Rs. 44.57 in a day.
• According to the usual status approach, the unemployment rate in the rural areas was around 2 per cent (for male nearly 3 per cent and for female nearly 2 per cent) . In urban area the unemployment rate was 5 percent (for male nearly 5 per cent and for female nearly 8 per cent).
• The unemployment rate obtained by any of the approaches, was higher for females than that for the males in the urban area but it was lower than that for males in the rural area.
• Among educated persons, (with education level secondary and above), in the age group 15 – 29 years, the unemployment rate in rural and urban area was 12 per cent and 16 per cent respectively.
• The proportion of usually employed male who were found to be not employed during the week preceding the date of survey, termed as visible underemployment rate, was 5 per cent in the rural and 2 per cent in the urban area. Compared to male, the problem of underemployment was more serious among the usually employed female, particularly in the rural area. Among them, the underemployment rate was as high as 18 per cent in the rural and 8 per cent in the urban area.
• The proportion of person-days without work of the usually employed was about 35 per cent and 18 per cent for female in rural and urban India, respectively as against 11 and 5 per cent for male in rural and urban India, respectively.
• The percentage of person-days on which persons with some work during the reference week (according to current weekly status) were without work was about 6 for rural male, 21 for rural female, 3 for urban male and 11 for urban female.
• The rate of under-employment was thus found higher in rural than urban, and higher for female than for male under the three approximations.
• Among the persons of age 15 years and above in the rural area, only 5 per cent got public works, 7 per cent sought but did not get public works and nearly 88 per cent did not even seek work in public works. For male, nearly 6 per cent got public works, 8 per cent sought but did not get public works and 85 per cent did not seek work in public works. The corresponding figures for female were, 3, 6 and 91 respectively.
• The average number of days worked in public works, during the last 365 days, by male and female was almost the same- 17 for male and 18 for female.
• Average wages received per day, for work in public works, was Rs. 56 for male and Rs. 54 for female.

Posted By Vidyanand Acharya

Growing unemployment across the globe

Global Unemployment Getting Bigger

· Vidyanand Acharya

Employment generation has become important parameter to measure the success of developmental policies adopted by the governments at state and at national level. However, the approach to tackle the problem of unemployment has varied from time to time and also from place to place. The gap between the GDP growth rate and employment growth rate in any country and also across the globe has attained its peak today. As a result the global unemployment situation have increased to nastiest level. The unemployment across the globe has reached at alarming height as per latest International Labour Organisation’s Global Employment Trends Report. The report warns that there could spur an increase in global unemployment by an estimated 5 million persons in 2008.

As per the report, the new projection for 2008 is in contrast to 2007, a watershed year in which sound global GDP growth – of more than 5 per cent, led to a “stabilization” of global labour markets with more people in work, a net increase of 45 million new jobs and only a slight increase in the number of people unemployed, to a total of 189.9 million persons worldwide.

“This year’s global jobs picture is one of contrasts and uncertainty”, said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. “While global growth is annually producing millions of new jobs, unemployment remains unacceptably high and may go to levels not seen before this year. What’s more, though more people are in work than ever before, this doesn’t mean that these jobs are decent jobs. Too many people, if not unemployed, remain among the ranks of the working poor, the vulnerable or the discouraged.” Significantly, the ILO report noted that the reduction in the growth in developed economies attributed to credit market turmoil and higher oil prices so far had been “compensated for in the rest of the world”, especially in Asia, where economic and job growth remained strong. However, the ILO report warned that an expected slowdown in growth during 2008 could increase the global unemployment rate to 6.1 per cent, with a resulting absolute increase of at least 5 million unemployed worldwide.

Though the Global economy growth of 5.2 per cent created an estimated 45 million new jobs in 2007, but failed to have any significant impact on the growth of unemployment. Overall, 61.7 per cent of the global populations of working age –or an estimated 3 billion people – were employed in 2007. Although the global unemployment rate remained virtually constant at 6 per cent, that meant an estimated 189.9 million people, compared to 187 in 2006, were unemployed worldwide in 2007.

The report said five out of 10 people in the world are in vulnerable employment, either contributing family workers or own-account workers with a higher risk of being unprotected. In developing countries these two categories are most likely to work informally and hence have jobs that leave them vulnerable to poverty and risks such as low earnings, dangerous working conditions and lack of health insurance. The ILO report said an estimated 487 million workers – or 16.4 per cent of all workers – still don’t earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the US$1 per person, per day poverty line while 1.3 billion workers – 43.5 per cent – still live below the US$2 per day threshold.

The report also underlined that the service sector continued to grow during 2007, further surpassing agriculture as the world’s most prevalent source of employment. The service sector now provides 42.7 per cent of the world’s jobs, compared to agriculture, which provides 34.9 per cent. The industrial sector, which had seen a slight downward trend between 1997 and 2003, has continued a rather slow upward trend in recent years, representing 22.4 per cent of global jobs.

Regional trends

The report has produced a comprensive picture of unemployment prevailed at regional level. The report observed that the Middle East and North Africa still had the highest unemployment rates at 11.8 and 10.9 per cent respectively in 2007, followed by Latin America & the Caribbean, Central & South Eastern Europe (non EU) & the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at 8.5 per cent. The situation in the Developed Economies & European Union (EU) seemed to be stagnating, the ILO report said, with job growth at its lowest in the last five years and unemployment up by 600,000 over 2006.

The ILO report said it appeared that, on current information, the initial impact of the credit crisis on Developed Economies & EU growth would result in an estimated 240,000 fewer new jobs in the region. However, the ILO analysis also indicated that from a global perspective this downward tendency in the developed economies would be “offset by the rest of the world”, largely due to strong economic and jobs growth in Asia.

ILO’s employment report said that South Asia was the leader in jobs growth during 2007, contributing 28 per cent of the nearly 45 million jobs created during the year worldwide. At the same time, the region has the highest share of vulnerable employment much of which reflects the poor quality of jobs created. More than seven out of 10 people are either own-account workers or contributing family workers, carrying a higher risk of being unprotected, without social security and without a voice at work.

The report said East Asia appeared to be on its way to becoming a middle income region, as sustained productivity growth had increased incomes and helped lift millions of people out of poverty. The ILO said the estimated share of East Asian workers living with their families below the US$2 per day poverty line dropped to 35.6 per cent today from 59.1 per cent 10 years ago, while the percent living below US$1 per day had decreased to 8.7 per cent from 18.8 per cent over the same period.

The report also noted that although the Middle East saw a considerable increase in the employment-to-population ratio the share of people of working age who were employed increased from 46 per cent in 1997 to 50.1 percent in 2007. At the same time, the Middle East was also the only region where labour productivity decreased within the same period.

The global unemployment trends clearly reveal that the process of ongoing globalisation and economic progress based on western developmental model, doesn’t automatically translate into new jobs. This shows once again that labour market policies must be at the centre of macroeconomic policies to ensure that economic growth is inclusive.