The latest employment figures thrown up by the National Sample Survey Organisation, with data for 2005-06, raise troubling questions. It appears there has been a fall in gross employment by two percentage points. Down from 43% of the population in 2004-05 to 41% the following year. Simply put, there is a decline in the number of people employed either as casual labour or as part of the organised sector workforce. This, even as private sector investment shot up to record levels. The survey also says that the proportion of employment in female casual labour was higher by one percentage point compared to male employment. Traditionally, higher employment of females in casual labour has signalled agriculture sector distress. The survey also indicates that, as of 2005-06, massive infrastructure growth had not translated into tertiary sector employment growth that?s associated with mega-projects. In itself, this is not remarkable; it takes a time lag for the tertiary sector to generate jobs once large-scale infrastructure investments are made.?But the bad news is that stagnant agricultural growth has added to the swelling crowds of job-seekers. The survey has also found a problem of wage stagnation at the lowest-paid levels, with casual labour earning only Rs 59.29 a day. This belies the claim that the rural worker would have little use of a job offered by the Centre?s ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
If the survey?s findings are true, then it is to the credit of the UPA government that it spotted an element of mass distress that needed?and still needs?redressal through interventionist methods that are frowned upon by free market advocates. The fiscal burden of NREGS, as it turns out, has not threatened economic growth by throwing budgetary calculations awry, though this admission has been rather slow in coming from the scheme?s most bitter critics. Of course, it is possible that NSSO?s employment figures are unreliable, as its poverty estimates have once proven. Self-employment, the Indian mainstay, often gets left out of the employment count. The informal economy is vast and record-keeping habits are poor, enlarging the scope for statistical error. But still, India should not be complacent about jobless growth. It is inclusiveness, after all, that gives GDP growth popular legitimacy.
