Is better economic performance improving the “quality” of employment, wages and incomes?
Over the period 2000-05, India generated 11.3 million net new jobs per year, on average. Most of the jobs are so-called “irregular” in India. Irregular (or informal) employment represented 86% of total employment in 2004/05, just under 1 percentage point less than in 1993/94. The remaining 14% of workers are in regular salaried employment, among which 6% work in the formal organised sector dominated by the public sector and the private sector with registered enterprises of 10 or more employees. It is often the case that lack of employment opportunities in the formal (manufacturing) sector explains the absorption of unskilled and semi-skilled labour in informal employment. In India, a 2001 report from the Planning Commission stated that sustained GDP growth (of 6.5%) in the1990s did not bring employment opportunities in the formal sector because economic growth was capital and information intensive rather than labour intensive. It is alleged that more than the stringency of Employment P
