Distribution of employment/Employment Patterns

Status-wise

2011-12	Men	Women	Total	Rural	Urban	Total
Self Employed	51	56	52			52%
Casual wage labourers	29	31	30			30%
Regular salaried Employees	20	13	18 (23 in 2017-18)			18%

Total formal employment in the economy increased from 8 % in 2011-12 to 9.98 % in 2017-18

Trends

Self-employment continues to be the major employment provider
People moved from Self-employed and regular salaried employment to casual wage work in the last four decades

Sector wise

Terms

Economic activities - Those activities that contribute to gross national product are called economic activities

Workers - All those who are engaged in economic activities, in whatever capacity are called workers and are considered as employed (those who are self-employed are also called workers).

Some social scientists argue that housewives working at home without getting paid for that work must also be regarded as contributing to the gross national product and therefore, as engaged in an economic activity

About two-fifth of the total population in the country is engaged in various economic activities.

Workforce population - age group 15-59 years

Worker Population Ratio WPR - It is defined as the number of persons employed per 100 persons i.e. no. of workers per 100 persons

Labour Force Participation Rate LFPR -

Labour force = Employed + Unemployed who are seeking employment

LFPR is defined as no of persons in the labour force per 1000 persons.
Any person who is working/available for/seeking work will be considered as part of labour force

Employment rate is the ratio of the employed to the working age population

Unemployment rate (UR): Unemployment rate (UR) is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force.

NOTE: While calculating Employment rate, we consider employed w.r.t all the working age population. But while calculating Unemployment rate, we only consider employed w.r.t labour force participation(employed and Who wants employment). In case of Worker Population ratio, we consider employed w.r.t to total population irrespective of age group

Labour Bureau

Labour Bureau is responsible for the collation, collection and publication of statistics and related information on wages, earnings, productivity, absenteeism, labour turn-over, industrial relations, working and living conditions and evaluation of working of various labour enactments etc

Quarterly Employment Survey

Labour Bureau has been conducting the Quarterly Employment Survey
Objective: Measuring relative change in employment situation over successive quarters in sizeable segment of Non-farm Industrial economy covering 8 major sectors viz. Manufacturing, Construction, Trade, Transport, Education, Health, Accommodation & Restaurants and IT/BPO.

Periodic Labour Force Survey

To enable effective monitoring of the labour market, National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) under the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MOSPI) has been given the responsibility of conduct of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).
Accordingly, NSSO is responsible for the formulation of sampling design, data collection, data processing and publication of reports.
This survey has been launched across India in April 2017.
It is employment-unemployment survey
Frequency every 5 years
Major parameters

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR),
Worker Population Ratio (WPR),
Unemployment Rate (UR),
Distribution of workers by industry, occupation, workers employed in informal sector and
Conditions of employment of the workers

Types of Unemployment

Frictional Unemployment:

Frictional unemployment is a temporary phenomenon.
It may take place in various ways

temporarily out of work while changing jobs

strikes and lockouts may result in the suspension of work,
Also caused by imperfect mobility of labour.

Factors inhibiting the geographical or occupational movement of unemployed workers into vacant jobs, thus, cause frictional unemployment.

Casual Unemployment:

In industries such as building construction, catering or agriculture, where workers are employed on a day- to-day basis, there are chances of casual unemployment occurring due to short-term contracts, which are terminable any time.

Seasonal Unemployment:

There are some industries and occupations such as agriculture, the catering trade in holiday resorts, some agro-based industrial activities, like sugar mills and rice mills, etc., in which production activities are seasonal in nature. So, they offer employment for only a certain period of time in a year.
For instance, work in sugar mills lasts for about six months. Rice mills work for only a few weeks.

Structural Unemployment:

Due to structural changes in the economy, structural unemployment may take place.
Structural unemployment is caused by a decline in demand for production in a particular industry, and consequent disinvestment and reduction in its manpower requirements.

Technological Unemployment:

A kind of structural unemployment may take place in an economy as a result of technological improvement. Such unemployment may be described as technological unemployment.
Due to the introduction of new machinery, improvement in methods of production, labour-saving devices etc., some workers tend to be replaced by machines. Their unemployment is termed as “technological unemployment.”
Technological unemployment is basically created by introduction of machinery. But, it is a temporary phenomenon.
In the long run, the development effectuated by the use of more capital leads to diversification of activities and promotion of many allied industries which would create additional job opportunities so that the unemployed workers will be absorbed in a more remunerative way.
Advancement in technology and unemployment

Since, Industrialization (18th century) there is concern of joblessness among individual as machine can replace human from many routine task and ought to eliminate many low-skill jobs. However, they have created more prosperity than they have destroyed
Technology through innovation, generates new sectors and new tasks, which provides opportunities to create new jobs, increase productivity, and deliver effective public services

Aravind view

Transition to high end technology may provide employment in long run as it creates new job opportunities but in the short run it causes disruptions while transition that may cause huge unemployment in short run
However, for sure, the new high end technologies will definitely reduce the overall quantum of jobs (direct/indirect)
Upward mobility to skilled jobs and technical jobs should be way forward

Cyclical Unemployment:

Capitalist-based, advanced countries are subject to trade cycles.
Trade cycles especially recessionary and depressionary phases — cause cyclic unemployment in these countries.
During the contraction phase of a trade cycle in an economy, aggregate demand falls and this leads to disinvestment, decline in production, and unemployment.

Chronic Unemployment:

When unemployment tends to be a long-term feature of a country it is called “chronic unemployment.” <
Underdeveloped countries suffer from chronic unemployment on account of the vicious circle of poverty.
Lack of developed resources and their under utilisation, high population growth, backward, even primitive state of technology, low capital formation, etc. are the major causes of chronic unemployment in underdeveloped economies.

Disguised Unemployment:

The term “disg ised unemployment” commonly refers to a situation of employment with surplus manpower, in which some workers have zero marginal productivity so that their removal will not affect the volume of total output.

Classical unemployment:

Classical unemployment is caused when wages are ‘too’ high.
When workers themselves were blamed for not accepting lower wages, or for asking for too high wages.
Classical unemployment is also called real wage unemployment.

Voluntary Unemployment

Where people choose not to work below a certain income level after ‘investing’ in education span>
NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy has flagged a dramatic rise in voluntary unemployment across the country,

Open Unemployment / Naked unemployment

Open unemployment is a condition in which people have no work to do. They are able to work and are also willing to work but there is no work for them.