lying to and from India via any of the Gulf countries, chances are a majority of passengers will be workers?masons, electricians, plumbers, welders and carpenters?flush with the new found wealth that construction workers earn in oil-rich countries. That seems to have had a dual impact back home. It has led to a severe shortage of such skilled workers and a corresponding rise in the cost of hiring them, creating an unusual situation. The latest TeamLease annual salary primer, which profiles the labour market, looked at industry-standard IT salaries after eight years of joining and what an electrician earns after the same period?the amount was nearly the same in both cases. The reason is that while the cost of labour has shot up because of the shortage, there is a glut of engineering graduates causing salaries to stagnate.
Over the same period, as anybody who has constructed a house will testify, electricians, plumbers and carpenters have become almost impossible to find; and when available, they charge exorbitantly. A 2013 study of the construction sector found that major projects in industrial belts are getting delayed by 12-18 months because of non-availability of workers. The construction sector is projected to account for over one-fourth of the new jobs to be created in the next eight years. What it suggests is that a large, unorganised sector of the economy has seen a significant jump in earnings, while those with salaried jobs, the middle class, have seen their earnings stagnate or rise marginally during the economic downturn. Electricians, masons and plumbers are the new aspiring class, having graduated from cycles to motorbikes, flat screen TVs, home ownership and other symbols of a rising class.
