Employment | Report Card Series | Ep5

Lack of dignified employment has been a pressing concern in India. Since 2014, the NDA government under the leadership of Narendra Modi has made several claims regarding creating jobs and increasing salaries. A thorough analysis of the union government’s National Sample Survey data of 2011-12 and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data from 2017 to 2022-23 was done by Bahutva Karnataka, a civil society platform that works on promotion of constitutional values. The findings from the analysis were released in a report titled ‘Employment, Wages & Inequality’ in March, 2024. Based on the report, this video discusses the extent of unemployment among youth and how wages across employment categories have stagnated over the last decade. On the one hand, PLFS data reveals that at least 300 million workers in India are earning less than the recommended minimum wages of Rs 375 per day. On the other hand, combining multiple data sources, a new research paper by Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi demonstrates that wealth inequality in India today is worse than how it was during the British rule of India. Watch this video for more. Directed by: Rajendran Narayanan Links • Bahutva Karnataka report on Employment, Wages & Inequality: https://bahutvakarnataka.wordpress.com/guaranteechecks/#employment-wages-and-inequity • Rise in self-employment and increase in women’s unpaid labour: By Akshit Arora https://www.theindiaforum.in/forum/making-sense-recent-developments-indian-labour-market • 9.79 lakh vacancies in central government jobs: B Saurav Anand https://www.livemint.com/news/india/979-lakh-vacancies-in-central-govt-departments-jitendra-singh-11670505730311.html • Report of the expert committee on determining the methodology for fixing the minimum wages in India: Chairperson - Anoop Satpathy https://labour.gov.in/sites/default/files/commitee_on_determination_of_methodology.pdf • Minimum wage increased from Rs 176 per day to Rs 178 per day in 2019: By Nitya Subramanian https://scroll.in/article/934142/in-charts-what-is-a-decent-minimum-wage-in-india-and-how-a-new-law-could-change-it • Income and wealth inequality in India, 1922-2023: The rise of the Billionaire Raj by Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi https://wid.world/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/WorldInequalityLab_WP2024_09_Income-and-Wealth-Inequality-in-India-1922-2023_Final.pdf