{"id":198181,"date":"2022-08-01T18:33:30","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T13:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=198181"},"modified":"2022-08-01T18:33:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T13:03:30","slug":"explained-indias-unique-jobs-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/explained-indias-unique-jobs-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Explained: India\u2019s unique jobs crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post is based on the article<\/span><b> \u201cExplained: India\u2019s unique jobs crisis<\/b><b>\u201d <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published in<\/span><b> Indian Express <\/b>on<b> 1st August 2022.<\/b><\/p>\n<h5><b>What is the News?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are fewer people employed in agriculture today, but the transformation has been weak. Those moving out of farms are working more in construction sites and the informal economy than in factories.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>The decline in the agriculture workforce in India<\/b><\/h5>\n<figure id=\"attachment_198182\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-198182\" style=\"width: 441px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-198182 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/data-5-1.jpeg?resize=441%2C414&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"agriculture workforce\" width=\"441\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/data-5-1.jpeg?w=550&amp;ssl=1 550w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/data-5-1.jpeg?resize=300%2C281&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-198182\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Indian Express<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1993-94, agriculture accounted for close to 62% of the country\u2019s employed labour force.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Between 1993-94 and 2018-19, agriculture\u2019s share in India\u2019s workforce came down from 61.9% to 41.4%. In other words, roughly a third in 25 years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, this isn&#8217;t significant because compared with the average for other countries in the same income bracket \u2013 India\u2019s farm sector should be employing 33-34% of the total workforce.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Is this a structural transformation?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The movement of workforce from agriculture that India has witnessed over the past three decades or more does not qualify as what economists call \u201cstructural transformation\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such transformation would involve the transfer of labour from farming to sectors \u2013 particularly manufacturing and modern services \u2013 where productivity, value-addition and average incomes are higher.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the share of manufacturing (and mining) in total employment has actually fallen along with that of agriculture. The surplus labour pulled out from the farms is being largely absorbed in construction and services.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hence, simply put, the structural transformation process in India has been weak and deficient.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What is the impact of this weak structural transformation?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Weak structural transformation and persistence of informality explain the tendency, especially by rural families for pursuing multiple livelihoods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many of them cling on to their small plots of land even while earning incomes wholly or predominantly from non-farm sources.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What was the impact of Covid-19 on the agriculture workforce?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There has been a reversal of the trend in the last two years which has seen the share of those employed in agriculture rise to 44-45%. This has primarily to do with the Covid-induced economic disruptions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, surveys have called this reverse migration of people back to the farms as a temporary phase.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article \u201cExplained: India\u2019s unique jobs crisis\u201d published in Indian Express on 1st August 2022. What is the News? There are fewer people employed in agriculture today, but the transformation has been weak. Those moving out of farms are working more in construction sites and the informal economy than&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/explained-indias-unique-jobs-crisis\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Explained: India\u2019s unique jobs crisis<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,3127,9],"tags":[10500],"class_list":["post-198181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-economy","category-public","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}