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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India’s economy and the challenge of informality -R Nagaraj and Radhicka Kapoor
-The Hindu Policy efforts to formalise the economy will have limited results as the bulk of informal units are petty producers Since 2016, the Government has made several efforts to formalise the economy. Currency demonetisation, introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), digitalisation of financial transactions and enrolment of informal sector workers on numerous government Internet portals are all meant to encourage the formalisation of the economy. But why the impetus...
More »How India’s informal economy is shrinking, and why that’s good news in the long term -Ila Patnaik and Radhika Pandey
-ThePrint.in Greater formalisation will see a shift from low-paying, labour-intensive jobs in informal sector to more productive, formal-sector jobs. This could lead to disruption in short term. A report issued by the State Bank of India (SBI) last month estimated that India’s informal economy has shrunk to 15-20 percent of the GDP in 2020-21 from 52 percent in 2017-18. The report uses employment and digitisation to assess the extent of formalization in...
More »Southern states had a higher proportion of indebted farm households in 2019, shows NSO survey
The Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round), which was released recently, informs one about farm households' income in the crop year 2018-19 and indebtedness in 2019 (as on the date of survey), among other things. Prior to the recent report, Land and Livestock Holding Surveys (LHS) and Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of Agricultural Households used to be...
More »How the labour market reacted to the Covid-19 triggered lockdowns -Radheshyam Jadhav
-The Hindu Business Line Data show that only 43% of those in informal jobs in Dec 2019 retained them in April 2020 Vs 72% in formal sector Pune: About 1.23 crore migrant labourers returned to their home States during the Covid – 19 lockdowns during 2020 and once again many State governments including Maharashtra government are considering lockdowns to curb rising Covid-19 cases. While industrial and business sectors are strongly opposing the...
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