-TheWire.in The minimum statutory wage of an Indian worker is the lowest in the world, except for some sub-Saharan African countries. New Delhi: A latest report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) has revealed that Indians are among the most overworked lot globally while earning the least minimum statutory wage in the Asia-Pacific region, barring Bangladesh, Live Mint has reported. India ranks fifth in the world among the countries with long working hours...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...

-Newsclick.in The government must analyse its existing data collection exercises, rationalise them and improve the inefficient statistical administration. It is good news that the Labour Bureau will revive its establishments-based Quarterly Employment Surveys or QES, using a larger sample. Since the Periodic Labour Force Surveys or PLFS collects data from households, the proposed quarterly survey of jobs will collect data from establishments. But it is advisable to review the multiple existing employment...

-The Indian Express A collective of NREGA women activists discovers its political voice. As Jean Dreze recently observed, one of the key ideas behind NREGA was that it would serve as a platform for increasing the overall political capacities of workers. It was hoped that people would organise themselves to collectively demand work and, in the process, learn about other legal and constitutional provisions. While learning about the latter has been patchy,...

-Scroll.in A large section of migrant workers surveyed who want to return have a single earning member, with family sizes ranging from four to eight dependents. “I was very scared. What kind of a disease is this? How will I manage with my small children here? Whatever happens I will never return to Surat again.” Durgabai, an Adivasi woman migrant worker from Udaipur, Rajasthan, was recalling her horrendous experience during the Covid-19 lockdown...