Retail in Asia

In People

40 million Indians unemployed

The recently published survey of employment and unemployment in India, conducted in 300 districts across the country by the Labour Bureau of the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, shows once again that without a reform of India’s archaic labour laws, the share of salaried employed will continue to remain low.

Public attention has largely focused on the unemployment number that the survey threw up. It shows an unemployment rate of 9.4 per cent in the year 2009-10. That is 94 persons out of 1,000 in the labour force were “available” for work but not gainfully employed. In absolute terms, this rate yields a figure of approximately 40 million persons.

This is a very high number. It is possible that the economic slowdown in 2009, following the global economic slowdown, and the sharp fall in production in export-oriented sectors may have contributed to this. This cannot, however, be an important part of the explanation since a substantial part of the total number unemployed comes from rural areas, with a 10 per cent rate of unemployment in rural areas and around 7.3 per cent in urban areas. However, in the absence of more detailed information, it is difficult to jump to any conclusion.