-Newsclick.in Inequality is not natural but manufactured. It’s time policymakers stopped normalising the wealth and income gap. Else, post-Covid inequality could become a permanent feature. Wealth and income inequality are more than just economic concepts. They also influence education and health outcomes, poverty levels, employment and Unemployment Rates, opportunities, choices, and, ultimately, happiness. Of late, several reports have investigated the impact of COVID-19 on various segments of society at the regional, national,...
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Job Situation has Improved? Not so Fast! -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in The share of the working-age population that is actually working is still less than in pre-pandemic times. The latest data on unemployment has been met with optimism, and near-celebration, especially in the mainstream media, which is straining at the leash to portray some good news about the economy under the Narendra Modi government. September’s Unemployment Rate fell to 6.43% from August’s 8.3%, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)—both...
More »How well did the women workers fare during the pandemic years? The yearly PLFS reports provide some mixed answers.
Do you want a job that does not pay you at all? The answer will be surely 'no' for most of us. And yet, in our previous analysis, it was found that the proportion of 'helpers in household enterprises' among the total number of workers grew over various rounds of annual PLFS (Periodic Labour Force Survey), from 13.3 percent to 15.9 percent between PLFS 2018-19 and PLFS 2019-20, and then...
More »Real estate, IT, gig jobs, MNREGA: Making sense of India’s roller-coaster unemployment crisis -Radhika Pandey
-ThePrint.in Employment in India rose from 394.6 million in August to 404.2 million in September, and while the numbers are still below pre-Covid levels, the increase is encouraging. India’s Unemployment Rate dropped sharply to 6.4 per cent in September from 8.3 per cent in August. This was the lowest Unemployment Rate in the past four years. The fall in unemployment was seen across both rural and urban regions. Alongside the decline in the...
More »Quality of work matters, and not just job creation
Contrary to the rising economic distress on the ground since the last few years, the official press release related to the fourth Annual Report on the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) at first glance seems to give a rosy picture about the employment situation in India. Defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force, the Unemployment Rate in usual status (principal activity status + subsidiary economic activity status)...
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