KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-Scroll.in Ashwini Vaishnaw based his remarks on EPFO data, which experts say does not present a true picture since a bulk of the employment in the country is informal. Union Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on November 24 used the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, or EPFO, payroll statistics to claim that an average of about 15-16 lakh jobs are being generated by the Union government every month....

-TheWire.in If governments wish to raise employment levels in formal sector enterprises and prepare school leavers for the world of work, it is critical that systems of internships and apprenticeships, formally approved and mandated, are encouraged.  In the vast majority of low-income and middle-income countries (LICs/MICs), most students at the secondary/higher secondary level are engaged in general academic education, not vocational education or training. For such students, the transition to the world of...

-Newsclick.in Funds squeeze causes 14-17% refusals every year. The rural jobs guarantee scheme has emerged as a lifesaver for millions of Indians as they struggle with relentless unemployment. But official data shows that a very large number of job seekers are being turned away and not given work. In the first six months of the current financial year (April to October 2022) nearly 1.5 crore applicants for work were refused work.  This situation...

-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...