Urban employment rate increased to 34.96 per cent in February. This is the highest employment rate recorded in urban India since September 2020.
The unemployment rate shot up to a record 10.9 per cent in the week that ended on December 18, points out Mahesh Vyas.
Average wages paid by listed companies is more than twice the salaries paid by other enterprises, points out Mahesh Vyas.
The 6.7% growth in Index of Consumer Sentiments in July 2022 is the highest since September 2021, explains Mahesh Vyas.
Agnipath offers jobs to youngsters between 17.5 years and 23 years of age. The unemployment rate in this age group has risen from around 23% in 2017 to over 50% since 2020. Every second person who is looking for employment in this age group is unemployed, explains Mahesh Vyas.
The growth is particularly remarkable because it comes at levels higher than during the pre-Covid times, notes Mahesh Vyas.
What the labour market statistics of March 2022 show is India's biggest sign of economic distress, points out Mahesh Vyas.
It would be larger than even in the pandemic year of 2020-2021, notes Mahesh Vyas.
Only West Asia and North Africa have a lower employment rate than India, points out Mahesh Vyas.
Households with only one employed person can be considered to be somewhat vulnerable. Their proportion is rising. Also rising is the proportion of highly vulnerable households with no person employed, observes Mahesh Vyas.
'We are today worse off today compared to where we were two years ago by as much as 43 per cent,' notes Mahesh Vyas.
Something seems to be working for Indian consumers. Yet, the Indian consumer expresses some caution this festive season, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
The week ended October 17 was remarkable as it saw a fall in the unemployment rate. We have not seen such a level in any monthly estimate of the employment rate since March 2020, Mahesh Vyas points out.
Labour seems to have found employment as maids, cooks, gardeners, security guards and the like -- a transition that could be described as from farms to the kitchen sink, instead of farms to factories, observes Mahesh Vyas.
Of these 8.5 million additional people employed in September, 6.5 million were in rural India, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
In the past 12 months, since September 2020, the net cumulative increase in employment has been just 44,483. This is negligible -- just 0.04 million on a base of over 400 million jobs, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
The Economic Survey will remain a documentation of the government's resolve to not recognise the severe stress on the labour markets and on the livelihoods of Indian households arising out of the pandemic and the consequent lockdown, observes Mahesh Vyas.
While many of the lost jobs will come back, the current loss is huge and its impact on the households that have suffered because of this cannot be captured in the comfort that jobs will come back eventually, observes Mahesh Vyas.
Casual labour, which is the type of employment provided by agriculture, yields much lower wages -- of the order of Rs 291 per day. Labour would not voluntarily shift to this lowest wage-rate sector unless it had no better option, observes Mahesh Vyas.
In the week ended June 6, only 2.3 per cent of the households reported that their incomes were higher than a year ago. This was the lowest-ever proportion of households reporting an increase in income in any week, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
Employment fell by 2.5 million in February, 0.1 million in March, 7.4 million in April and then by 15.3 million in May, explains Mahesh Vyas.
Recovery of the Indian economy depends to a great extent on acceleration in the spending of these relatively richer households, explains Mahesh Vyas.
May 2021 will end with double-digit unemployment rate, falling employment rate and substantial loss of employment, points out Mahesh Vyas.
The cumulative loss of salaried jobs since the pandemic is even larger at 12.6 million, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
The return of the unemployment rate to pre-lockdown times is not worth celebrating because it is more a reflection of a shrinking labour force than a decline in the count of the unemployed, observes Mahesh Vyas.
'Loss of these urban salaried jobs is, therefore, likely to have a particularly debilitating impact on the economy, besides causing immediate hardship to middle-class households,' points out Mahesh Vyas.
January 2021 more than recovered the loss of employment of the past three months, notes Mahesh Vyas.
While salaried jobs are not lost easily, once lost they are also far more difficult to retrieve. Therefore, their ballooning numbers are a source of worry, notes Mahesh Vyas.
The finance minister did very well for equity market investors but not so with families, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
It is important to increase employment in general. It is even better to increase good quality jobs. Strategically, it is important to move people from farms to factories to improve overall labour productivity. It is important to improve job opportunities for women, for urbanites and for the educated. The Budget does not contain ideas to do any of this, points out Mahesh Vyas.
Those who lost jobs in December were women, graduates, post graduates, salaried employees, observes Mahesh Vyas.
Governments seem to be a lot more wary of imposing a draconian lockdown this time. Some lessons seem to have been learned. So, it may be fair to assume that these lockdowns will do less harm. But they will hurt the recovery process, which is still incomplete, warns Mahesh Vyas.
The count of the unemployed mounted to 38.7 million in December 2020 compared to 27.4 million in November, registering a massive increase of 11.3 million, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
The cut in wages by companies whose operations were not shut by the lockdown was more likely opportunistic than out of business compulsions to survive the lockdown. If this is true, then it is worth wondering what kind of opportunism was this? Was it to make a quick buck or was it to use a crisis to engineer a structural change that was necessary, asks Mahesh Vyas.
'By November 2020, men recovered most of their lost jobs, but women were less fortunate: 49 per cent of the job losses by November were of women.' 'The recovery has benefited all, but it benefited women less than it did men,' notes Mahesh Vyas.
These companies provide better quality jobs and so it is particularly reassuring to see these jobs grow faster than the overall growth of jobs in India, says Mahesh Vyas.
The addition of a million jobs as promised by Tejashwi Yadav would make a big impact. But the electorate needs to raise its expectations, notes Mahesh Vyas.
Keeping the employment rate from slipping is challenging. To merely keep the employment rate unchanged, the economy has to generate additional jobs. It needs to run to stay where it is, points out Mahesh Vyas.
The labour participation rate tells us how many of the working age population are willing to be employed. If this proportion keeps falling as it evidently is, it does not bode well for India's growth story. It renders all stories of a revival in the economy as a myth, warns Mahesh Vyas.
The recovery seen in the increased economic activity till September or October is running out of steam. Labour statistics indicate a substantial slowing down of the economy in November, notes Mahesh Vyas.
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