The country’s economy is witnessing a stagnating employment growth rate, weakening employment elasticity, slow structural transformation, and brewing structural problems in the labour market such as low female labour force participation and a rise in the unemployment rate (UR) with education levels, according to a study by D. Tripati Rao of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow. Prepared in collaboration with researchers from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, the study points to a surge in output growth and employment from 1987–88 to 2004–05, followed by ‘jobless growth’ from 2004–05 to 2018–19 and a subsequent trifling rebound thereafter.
In an academic paper based on the study published in the Indian Journal of Labour Economics, the researchers prescribed that a conscious effort to identify and promote the labour-intensive manufacturing sector will help in accomplishing inclusive growth. The researchers analysed data from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) Employment and Unemployment Survey, and Periodic Labour Force Survey Dashboard for the study. It examines the evolving employment and output growth scenario, and labour market situation in the country’s economy between 1983 to 2020–21.
