There are many indications everywhere that India continues to be going through a jobs crisis. Official data sources as well as many on-the-ground reports point to this fact. What are the macroeconomic reasons for this crisis?
The symptoms of low labour demand
At the outset, it is useful to distinguish the two types of employment that prevail in an economy such as India. The first is wage employment which is a result of labour demanded by employers in their pursuit of profits. The second is self-employment where labour supply and labour demand are identical, i.e., the worker employs herself. A further useful distinction can also be made between wage labour and jobs. The first includes all forms of labour done for an employer including daily wage work at one extreme and highly paid corporate jobs at the other. But, jobs generally refer to relatively better paid regular wage or salaried employment. In other words, all jobs are wage labour, but all wage labour cannot be called jobs. When we speak of a jobs problem, we are speaking of inadequate labour demand particularly for regular wage work.
