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)...

-The Telegraph At present, India has 195 million households with ration cards (nearly 794 million people), lower than the beneficiaries we intended to target in 2013 Inordinate delays in carrying out the census exercise are depriving millions of Indians who rely on rations for their subsistence. The exclusion of the poorest from the public distribution system in the pre and post-pandemic years was first flagged by the economists, Jean Drèze and Reetika...

-Press release by Oxfam India dated 15 September 2022 New Delhi: Oxfam India’s latest ‘India Discrimination Report 2022’ finds women in India despite their same educational qualification and work experience as men will be discriminated in the labour market due to societal and employers’ prejudices. The academically recognised statistical model applied in the India Discrimination Report is now able to quantify the discrimination women face in the labour market. The lower...

-The Hindu Business Line CPI-AL increases to 6.60 per cent, CPI-RL up to 6.82 in July Retail inflation for farm workers and rural workers rose further in July, driven by an increase in food prices. The All-India Consumer Price Index based inflation for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL) and Rural Labourers (CPI- RL) increased to 6.60 per cent and 6.82 per cent in July, 2022 respectively. CPI- AL was at 6.43 per cent in June this...

-ThePrint.in India’s salaried class shrank by 2.7 percentage points during pandemic, govt’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) shows. But data for religious minorities, women is even bleaker. New Delhi: There’s much to lament in India’s post-Covid job market, where recovery has been painfully slow. However, government data suggests that when it comes to the salaried sector, the participation of religious minorities — Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians, in that order — has been...