Context: Declined from 6.1% (2017–18) to 3.2% (2023–24), accompanied by an increase in female workforce participation.
- However, rising employment does not necessarily ensure dignity, income security, social protection and stable livelihoods.
- The challenge is to shift from a job-counting approach to a job-quality approach.
Decent Work: Meaning and Significance
- International Labour Organization (ILO): Defines decent work as employment providing fair income, workplace rights, social security and dignity.
- Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG-8): Promotes sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Measuring Decent Work in India
- Decent Work Index (DWI): A multidimensional index constructed using Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data for 2017–18 and 2023–24.
- Three dimensions: Employment status, employment opportunity and social security.
- Five industries covered: Agriculture, manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail, and transport.
- Overall improvement: DWI increased from 0.247 (2017–18) to 0.302 (2023–24), indicating improved job quality, although the overall level remains low.
Sectoral Trends in Decent Work
- Manufacturing: DWI increased from 0.324 to 0.411, reflecting gradual formalisation and digitalisation.
- Transport: DWI improved from 0.285 to 0.350, driven by urban logistics and app-based platform work.
- Agriculture: Recorded the lowest DWI, improving marginally from 0.211 to 0.267; most workers remain self-employed or unpaid family workers without stable incomes and labour protection.
- Construction and Retail: Continue to depend heavily on casual labour, subcontracting and insecure employment arrangements.
- Common concern: Employment opportunities are expanding faster than labour protections, with many workers lacking written contracts, paid leave, provident fund and insurance benefits.
Rising Informalisation of Employment
- Informal workforce: Nearly 90% of India's workforce remains informally employed, with its share rising since 2019, according to the India Employment Report 2024 (ILO–Institute for Human Development).
- Expanding informalisation: Extends beyond traditional informal enterprises into organised industries through contractualisation and outsourcing, as well as supply chains, gig work, logistics and home-based production.
- Implementation gap: Existing welfare schemes often fail to provide effective protection to informal workers.
Social Inequalities in Access to Decent Work
- Education and skills: Decent work outcomes improve significantly with education, formal enterprise employment and skill training.
- Informalisation: Increasing informal employment reduces the creation of decent jobs.
- Caste and gender intersection: Women belonging to Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) experienced declining decent-work outcomes during 2017–18 to 2023–24, even as outcomes for men improved.
- Post-pandemic inequality: The combined disadvantage of gender and social marginalisation has intensified after COVID-19, reflecting structural caste and gender hierarchies in the labour market.
Regional Disparities
- Better performers: Goa, Keralam, Tamil Nadu and Haryana.
- Lagging States: Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
- This reflects uneven distribution of quality employment opportunities across States.
Implications of Poor-Quality Employment
- Economic vulnerability: Workers without social security have lower savings and consumption and remain vulnerable to economic shocks.
- Low productivity: Informality reduces productivity, weakens tax capacity and widens economic inequality.
- Viksit Bharat @2047: India cannot achieve inclusive development through insecure, low-paid and unprotected employment.
- Developmental concern: Falling unemployment and rising incomes alone cannot adequately measure labour market success; employment must also ensure dignity and security.
Way Forward
- Universal Social Protection: Extend portable and accessible social security to gig workers, platform workers, self-employed persons, farmers and informal workers, irrespective of employment status.
- Strengthen e-Shram: Move beyond worker registration towards actual delivery of social security benefits and effective protection.
- Employment-linked Formalisation: Link tax incentives and subsidies to mandatory worker protections, including written contracts, paid leave and social security contributions.
- Gender-sensitive Labour Policies: Provide childcare facilities, safe transportation, skill training and protection against workplace discrimination, particularly for women from marginalised communities.
- Worker-centric Labour Reforms: Prioritise workers' welfare and security rather than focusing primarily on reducing the cost of doing business.
Labour Codes and Decent Work
- Four Labour Codes: Introduced to simplify labour regulation, consolidate existing labour laws and expand worker protection.
- Key concern: Their implementation has remained partial and inconsistent. Critics argue that easing business compliance alongside rising contractualisation may weaken effective worker protection.
- Way Forward: Ensure effective implementation with adequate social security, workplace safeguards and enforcement of labour rights.
Conclusion: India must move from employment generation to decent employment generation. The real measure of development is not merely whether people have work, but whether their work ensures dignity, fair income, social security and economic stability.
