Hindustan Times (Bathinda)

Informal jobs are the new norm, not the exception

We need to identify strategies to organise informal workers to increase their collective representa­tive voice

- ■ RADHICKA KAPOOR

Over the last one year, the government has claimed that India is facing a jobs’ data crisis, not a jobs crisis. In the absence of any officially released employment-unemployme­nt statistics since the Labour Bureau’s household survey of 2015-16, the lack of any recent data (barring that of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private agency ) is certainly a problem. But the real issue, which has attracted relatively little attention in the jobs debate, is that of the dominance of informal employment.

The National Sample Survey’s (NSS) last quinquenni­al employment-unemployme­nt survey (2011-12) showed that 92% of India’s workforce is informally employed. More recently, the Internatio­nal Labour Organizati­on (ILO) provided comparable estimates on the size of the informal economy at the global and regional levels for the first time (Women and men in the informal economy: A statistica­l picture, 2018). The report found that 88.2% of employment in India was informal, significan­tly higher than the global average of 60%. What is more, the prevalence of informal employment in India was comparable to that of sub-saharan Africa (89.2%). With little job security and limited access to safety nets, most of the informally employed remain vulnerable to health hazards, economic downturns and natural catastroph­es. It is no surprise that the ILO estimates that three out of four workers in India will fall in the category of vulnerable employment by 2019.

The extent and importance of the traditiona­l informal sector has persisted in India over the decades and it has not been absorbed by the modern sector as expected with robust economic growth. Many attribute this to factors such as India’s labour regulatory environmen­t and trends in trade and technology. However, it needs to be noted that India’s pattern of structural transforma­tion where the GDP growth has been driven by sectors which are not employment intensive has generated limited productive formal job opportunit­ies for the country’s low skilled and unskilled workforce. Consequent­ly, the poor, who do not have the luxury to remain unemployed in their wait for formal jobs, resort to informal employment.

What is more, many of the new jobs being created in the platform economy (such as Ola and Uber) are also non-standard in nature. In other words, they are outside the ambit of laws and regulation­s covering minimum wages and other benefits. While for some, these informal work arrangemen­ts may be a matter of choice and a way of supplement­ing their income, for most others they are associated with job insecurity, earnings volatility and reflect precarious work as they can no longer rely on an employer to pay their pension or cover their healthcare. Thus, as old forms of informal employment persist, new forms are also emerging. We need to confront the reality that the informal economy is increasing­ly the norm, not the exception. Informal workers are not the marginal or temporary entities depicted in early developmen­t theories. There is no denying the importance of creating an enabling environmen­t for productive enterprise­s to generate more formal jobs. It is another matter that this cannot be achieved by mandating a 10% quota in government jobs for economical­ly weaker sections, when the pool of government jobs is shrinking. But, the real policy challenge lies in how we can improve the quality of informal work and reduce the decent work deficit in the informal sector.

In addition to providing social security benefits, there is a need to rethink how social protection systems and labour market institutio­ns need to adapt to a changing world where traditiona­l employer-employee relationsh­ips are likely to erode. We need to identify strategies to organise informal workers to increase their collective representa­tive voice and ensure that their fundamenta­l rights at work are not violated. The lack of data cannot any longer be cited as an excuse to deny the enormity of these challenges.

Radhicka Kapoor is a fellow at ICRIER, and has worked with the Planning Commission and Internatio­nal Labour Organizati­on The views expressed are personal

 ?? AFP ?? The ILO estimates that three out of four workers in India will fall in the category of vulnerable employment by 2019
AFP The ILO estimates that three out of four workers in India will fall in the category of vulnerable employment by 2019
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