Rise in salaried workers, women fare better: NSO

The share of regular wage earners and salaried employees in the total urban workforce increased marginally between April-June 2018 and January-March 2019 — from 48.3% to 50% — with women faring better than men, the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO) showed.

According to data released on Saturday, the rising trend has been maintained over the last four quarters, with women salaried workers, representing organised sector workers, seeing a 2.1 percentage point increase, compared to 1.5 percentage points for male workers.

In all, over a fifth of youth in Indian cities who were available in the job market was unable to find employment in the last quarter of 2018-19, the PLFS data says. In January-March 2019, the quarter from which latest data is available, the survey estimates 22.5% unemployment rate in people aged 15 to 29 years.

Although the rate was the lowest for the four quarters for which data is available, it shows that the labour market has largely failed to address unemployment issues that are now being consistently raised by many industry bodies as well as experts.

Women fared poorly in the labour force participation rate. While it slowed to a three-quarter low of 36% during January-March 2019, women seeking work or in employment (15%) during this period were just around quarter of their male counterparts (56.2%). In both the segments, the slowdown was more pronounced in the 15-29 years bracket.

The labour force participation rate is defined as the percentage of population in the labour force and, according to the current weekly status, it is the number of persons either employed or unemployed on an average during a full week preceding the survey period.

Gender wise analysis of the data shows that the unemployment rate was significantly higher among women seeking employment. In Q4 2018-19, unemployment rate was 29% among women which was 8 percentage points higher than joblessness among men. This is despite the fact that women have a far lower share in the overall labour force.

Experts said it was difficult to derive any trend from the data since it is a new data series. “Let there be a time series and let the data stabilise and only then can we derive any trend,” said Pronab Sen, India’s former chief statistician.

On the flip side, there was a decrease in the proportion of the self-employed – from 38.9% in April-June 2018 to 37.7% in the latest period surveyed.

The numbers also suggested that there was a fall in agriculture sector’s share as well as those of the secondary sectors such as mining, manufacturing and construction, while the tertiary sector, comprising services, went up.