Growth and Employment Trends 2014

 

The global employment trends 2014 released by International Labour Organisation (ILO) had presented with various statistics of the prevailing economic status of all countries. India’s GDP was pitched at 5% for the year 2013. Though India could withstand the weathering Economic Financial Crisis in 2008-2009 as the economy grew at record 11% it had succumbed to slow growth in 2011 due to domestic factors and reverberations in the economies of advanced countries. Further the decline in GDP of India is attributed both to low levels of investment and poor performance of manufacturing sector. India currently faces several macroeconomic challenges and imbalances due to high consumer price inflation which is pegged at 10.8%, current account deficit stands at 4.9% of GDP thus making it more dependent on external capital flows. The economic slowdown, policy uncertainty, and change in investor sentiment had led to volatility in capital flows in India; hence even the exchange rate has plummeted.

Labour Markets

Statistics indicate that labour markets are dominated by informal and agriculture sector where in wages are meagre and jobs are unprotected. Total employment in India has expanded from 2009 to 2012 in informal sector by 13.9 million jobs. The current unemployment in South Asia stands at 4% against 3.9% in 2013 with youth and women becoming more vulnerable to job loss. Youth unemployment is 10.2% against adult unemployment of 2.5%. Labour force participation has always been low in South Asia and it has come down to 39.6% implying increased enrolment into schools especially in secondary schooling.

Gender Gaps

There is wide spread gender disparity in terms of quality of employment, opportunities for better jobs and wages. Female labour participation hovers around 31% in India while it is 82.7% for Indian men. While the percentage of salaried men in the working group of 15-59 is 21.2% for men, 13.4% of females have such jobs. Women still tend to earn less, work in less productive jobs and are over-represented in unpaid family work.

Structural Transformation

Self-employment continues to be the most prevalent in South Asia. The number of jobs in informal sector has reduced and new jobs are created in registered formal sector. But due to the absence of the regular employment benefits and relationships there is an increase in the number of casual or contractual work force. Owing to poor structural transformation still most of the work force is dependent on agriculture sector with 51.7% people making their living through agriculture. It is as high as 74% in Pakistan.

Outlook

There is still a lot of scope for development as the fundamentals of economy like investment in infrastructure, large youth population and skill development programmes offer a great scope for shifting back to booming economic status. The essential key lies in converting the growth into decent employment for young women and men entering the labour market.