PROBLEMS OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND EMPLOYMENT IN INDIA

 Unemployment is a crucial issue faced by many countries across the world. Generally unemployment is referred as a situation where all the people in the work force who are willing and able to work at the prevailing wage and working conditions are unable to get employment.The unemployment rate refers to the percentage of people in the labour force who are unemployed. In India the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) has been conducting Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) since 2017-  collecting data on employment and unemployment situation in  the country.So far six Annual Reports and twenty three quarterly reports have been released by NSSO.The Annual Periodic Labour Force Survey  PLFS is designed with two major objectives of measuring unemployment and employment  .While the first measure the dynamics in labour force     and employment in the short time interval of three months for only the urban areas in  the Current Weekly Status (CWS), Second one utilise  data for both rural and urban areas,to measure the labour force estimates on key parameters in both usual Status and current weekly status. The workers in usual status are categorised into  three broad categories in accordance with their status in employment   they are 1.self employed.2.regular wage/salaried employee and 3.casual labour.Within the category of self employed two sub categories-own account worker,employer and unpaid helper in the household etc are also considered .The number of self employed has increased from57.3% in 2022-23 to 58.4% in 2023-24. The indicators  utilised by PLFS for  analysis include labour force participation rate (LFPR) or the percentage of persons in labour force (working or seeking work) Worker Population Ratio (WPR) is the percentage of employed persons in the population.  Worker population Ratio was 45.6 as per usual status and 41.4 as per  CWS.As per usual Status males accounted for 56.3 and females 34.8. as against 54.3 males and 28.4 females under CWS. The Unemployment Rate (UR) refers to the percentage of persons unemployed among the total labour force.As per the survey the unemployment rate of 2023-24 was 2.5 with males and 2.7 and females 2.1 compared to 3.2 in 2022-23 with 3.3 males and and 2.9 females. Labour Force participation rate (LFPR)showed significant increase from 57.9% in 2022-23 to 60.1% in 2023-24. Interestingly while rural LFPR increased to 63.7% as against urban LFPR increased only 52% during the same period. 

Worker population Ratio for males above 15 years for urban areas also increased from 69.2 % in April-June  2023 to 70.4% during April- June 2024.On the otherhand WPR of females in urban areas increased to 21.1% in April- June 2023 to 23.0 % in April-June 2024.The worker population Ratio religion wise for 2023-24 indicated 46.7% for Hindus with 56.9% males and and 36.3 females as against 38.3 for Islam with 52.4 males and only 24.3 females.  Christians  accounted for relatively higher share of 47.9 with 55.3 males and 40.7 females. Sikhism accounted for 43 .4 with  maximum male share of 58.7 and 27.2 females as against the national average of 45.6 with 56.3 males and 34.8 females respectively .As per the survey maximum unemployment was reported  from Lakshadweep 36.2 % ,Andaman and Nicobar islands 33.6%,Kerala 29.9%, Nagaland 27.4,Manipur 22.9, and Ladak 22.2%.On the otherhand low unemployment rate was reported from Chattisgarg 6.3 %,Delhi 4.6%,Jharkand 3.6%, Gujarat 3.1% and Madhya Pradesh 2.6. 

It may be observed here that based on a different methodology  Centre for Monitoring Indian economy  ( CMIE) has already estimated unemployment rate as 8.05 % for 2023-24 as against 7.56% in 2022-23. As per the India Employment Report released by International Labour Organisation and Institute of Human Development few months back it observed that critical indicators like LFPR, WPR and UR indicated a long term deterioration between 2000 and 2018 but witnessed further improvement. Unemployment rate increased several fold from 5.7 % to 17.5 percent, but there after it decreased to 12.4 % in 2022.The share of wage employment remains significantly lower than in the pre pandemic period signifying the difficulty in creating formal and secure jobs. Moreover  the inability of the economy to generate remunerative and decent jobs is pushing more and more  people into self employment comprising of limited entrepreneurial ventures on the one hand and  also largely in the informal sector with mostly unpaid family jobs. On the otherhand the benefits of ease of doing business is highly beneficial to large corporate sector especially in terms of FDI inflows, time bound processing of intellectual property applications and availing benefits of PLI schemes and even lower effecive rate of taxation etc.On the contrary micro small and medium enterprises  largely  face harrasment from local authorities and bureaucrats in the operation of their tiny enterprises.Hence it is high time to provide more comprehensive entrepreneurship knowledge support to MSME's or those who operate in the informal sector with entrpernuerial development, knowledge about various supportive measures, market awareness and financial literacy etc Infact for more job creation the  country needs to ease the regulatory bottlenecks for the MSME's and ensure adequate and efficient financial allocation. Education and skill development including upskilling and reskilling in accordance with the global supply chain with or without the support of global capability centers will provide more employment opportunities. However increased use of Artificial Intelligence may ultimately increase unemployment further.