The recent findings by the Labour Bureau's Employment and Unemployment Survey (2009-10) provide timely pointers to the manner in which liberalising India's workforce is coping with the changing times. The survey gives a snapshot of the country's employment and demographic situation. The estimated unemployment rate — in the region of 9.4 per cent (barring the five north-eastern States and the islands of Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar, where the survey was not done) — is a reminder that creating jobs for the millions will continue to be a fundamental challenge for policymakers. Although the global economic downturn offers itself as a ready explanation, the malaise runs deeper: the inability to come up with an effective rural employment strategy. Despite industrialisation, rural India remains the main employment provider. That the situation has not changed drastically in the two decades of reforms is evident from the survey results. First, it brings out the magnitude of unemployment; secondly, it turns the spotlight on the low availability of social security benefits for the Indian workforce.
Disaggregated data make it evident that rural India should remain the focus of policymakers. It is home to 72.26 per cent of the country's 238 million households, and 10.1 per cent of its labour force is unemployed, compared with 7.3 per cent in urban areas. The double-digit rural unemployment rate points to both an excess of labour that needs to be moved from agriculture and allied activities to manufacturing and services, and the declining role of the primary sector as an employment provider. In rural areas, agriculture continues to be the dominant employer (57 per cent), followed by construction (7.2 per cent), manufacturing (6.7 per cent), and community services (6.3 per cent). Although there is a case for strengthening well-conceived schemes guaranteeing minimum employment, they could at best be bridge solutions. Upgrading the skills of the rural workforce to enable it to match the requirements of the manufacturing and services sectors would provide more lasting results. Equally important is the survey's observation that the spread of social security cover is woefully inadequate — only a paltry 163 persons per 1,000 benefit from the various social security measures. This low coverage should remind policymakers that a lot more needs to be done for a workable social security system to be in place. Despite the recent initiatives, the challenges on the employment generation and the social security fronts remain largely unaddressed.
There are 500,000 villages in India. Give one milk cow per every 1000 people in villages. This will improve employment as well as nutrition of the village people.
It is necessary to create more jobs but more important is stability and improvement in living conditions. As a result of infrastucture projects like road construction and laying of cables of electricity companies and telecom companies and similar work, many temporary jobs are created for manual workers.However, we find that the casual workers who work on the site are a very deprived lot. Unorganised as they are, they depend on some one to provide them the jobs, live in tempoary sheds' These conditions have to improve if the impact of the job creation has to improve.
India's 70 percent population is depend on agriculture.whereas i know ,it is required to change the policy specially for the rural areas.It is very important to encourage the youth .India should invest more of its GDP on education,health,sanitation. Thus India will improve
The next big challenge for India is managing its young workforce.India is one of the youngest countries in the world in terms of demographics. Over 40% of India's population is less than 24 years old.This statistic is a matter of worry owing to the unemployment rate. The young workforce which is seen as the boon for making the next generation dedicated to India's development could turn out to be a liability rather than ability. The policy makers need to draft policies to bring employment and bring the best out of the youth . Rural areas should be made to add more employment opportunities but not at the cost of the environment. The policies should not only be drafted but implemented at the lowest level. The panchaiyats and local body officials should be informed and trained about the policies and a central committee supervision should be enacted for implementation . The central committee should be held accountable . The issue needs to be taken with priority before the ability turns out a liability and we have a young generation to feed without its any addition to the development.
The author has forgotten to mention here an important point about rural India that most of our country's rural work force are still dependent upon the Agriculture and its related activities only, and at a time where our country strongly needs another green revolution to improve the agriculture productivity, instead of upgrading the skills of rural workforce towards other sectors,proper support can be provided to them in Agricultural activities itself.
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