Employment situation in India
Increase in global trade does not mean better-quality jobs
Unemployment is widespread in India because the country has a huge growth of the labor force, yet relatively slow growth in job opportunities. 90% of the working population are in the unorganized sector (agricultural workers in the country, contractors and subcontractors in the city) and 70% are either illiterate or only have an education below the primary level.
Read more on employment in India
A recent report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) showed that 93% of workers in India are employed in the informal sector. This means they work under an enterprise which is unregistered, is not subject to governmental regulation or national law, and does not provide them with any social protection. With no way to access a social security net, workers in these cases are left susceptible to wide poverty traps.
More than 90% of the labor force is employed in the informal or 'unorganzied' sector, in which employers do not provide social security or other benefits received by employees in the organized sector. Agricultural workers consitute most informal labor in rural areas, while in urban areas this category includes contractors, sub-contractors and migratory workers.
In the Western world, the average full-time worker usually expects his or her job to automatically include benefits like insurance plans, incentives, compensation for accident or illness, even paid leave and tenure. Yet in developing nations, most workers get little or no benefits at all, and the uncertainty or instability of their positions only heightens their risk of losing pay or losing their income altogether. Informal employment often involves individuals who are self-employed or members of the same family. Such a lack of insurance against sudden crises leaves households little support when the economy goes south. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy’s comments in the October 12 article on India that while globalized trade has increased growth and development in poorer countries, it has not necessarily improved the quality of those workers’ jobs.
Superhindus, another worpress blogger who wrote about the Hindu growth rate, has one post with a ton of statistics on employment classification for different religious groups in both rural and urban areas of the country.
Due to all of the jobs being outsourced to India from the United States and several other countries, don’t you think their unemployment rate is beginning to decrease? More jobs are being moved there, and the jobs being outsourced are becoming progressively more sophisticated such as law positions, medical advisors etc.
You are quite right about the high number of U.S. jobs being outsourced to India, and those do create jobs for the educated class that is eligible to be trained and work for them. However, I think it’s important to remember that a majority of Indians do not work in these areas: over 60% of the labor force is made up of agricultural workers, and 12% are industrial workers. For them there is little access to the medical and service based jobs created by western outsourcing.