- Tuesday, May 07, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA saw an addition of 16 million jobs in July mainly in the sector of agriculture and construction but the number of salaried jobs dropped by 3.2 million, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), an independent non-government entity that serves both as an economic think-tank as well as a business information company, said.
“India saw an addition of a massive 16 million jobs in July 2021. But all the additional employment provided by India in July was of poor quality. 18.6 million additional people were employed as small traders and daily wage labourers,” CMIE’s managing director and chief executive officer Mahesh Vyas said in an analysis.
According to him, most of these people were engaged in agriculture where 11.2 million additional people were employed.
He said the number of salaried jobs, which are mostly better-quality jobs, went down by 3.2 million in the same month.
“The big jump in employment seen in agriculture in July is a reflection of the increase in sowing activities. Monsoon has been playing truant this year. This has delayed kharif sowing activities. By the end of June 2021, kharif sowing was more than 20 per cent lower than it was in the corresponding period of 2020,” Vyas added.
The top CMIE official said by the end of July, sowing was less than five per cent lower than a year ago – 65.3 million hectares were sown in July compared to 19.5 million hectares in the month before. Vyas said this could be the reason why a sharp rise in employment in agriculture has been witnessed.
He added that employment in the agriculture sector usually sees a rise in July and it is a kind of seasonal pattern.
“Often, the increase begins in June, peaks in July and sometimes remains elevated in August. This is the kharif time of sowing and post-sowing agricultural activities. Employment then rises again in November during the kharif harvesting season. Agriculture absorbs an additional 8-12 million persons in the month of July. In this year, the absorption in July was on the higher side at 11.2 million,” the CMIE MD said.
He also said that the seasonal absorption of labour into agricultural activities is different from the large-scale migration of labour into agriculture as farmers.
Explaining it, Vyas said this happens when other sources of employment start drying up as seen in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak and the rise of employment in the form of farmers seen the same year was mostly disguised employment.
Speaking about the construction sector, Vyas said it absorbed an additional 5.4 million people in July while the manufacturing sector shed 0.8 million and the services sector accommodated half a million people.
The relatively better-quality jobs were reduced in July, Vyas said, adding that salaried jobs were at 76.5 million in the month, 3.2 million less than they were in June.
These were also 3.6 million short of the pre-second wave level of 80 million in January-March, he said.
