The substantially increased economic dualism may exert lasting negative influences which could include a reduced potential for economic growth; the persistence of a very weak employment and poverty situation; rising social and political discord; and heightened vulnerability to geopolitical challenges, cautions Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
'The China opportunity, the digital opportunity and the end of geography opportunity are the three pieces of luck India got due to Covid.'
The cumulative loss of salaried jobs since the pandemic is even larger at 12.6 million, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
'The economic impact of this lockdown is evidently huge.' 'Its impact on the livelihood of vulnerable sections of the society is immeasurably bigger,' observes Mahesh Vyas.
According to NSSO, more than half of India's working-age population is out of labour force. In 2017-18, the youth unemployment rate was in the range 13.6-27.2 per cent.
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.
'The rise in unemployment, underemployment, discouraged workers and job insecurity is likely to continue, with very adverse consequences for the nation's economic well-being and social cohesion,' warns Shankar Acharya.
More than 50 Africa-born or African-origin players are spread across 11 teams -- excluding sides from the continent -- that are part of the tournament in Qatar.
'It will take a long time for people's memory to be misled by a prime minister who is so arrogant and who refuses to acknowledge his own faults.'
India's gig workforce is expected to expand to 2.35 crore by 2029-30 from 77 lakh in 2020-21, a NITI Aayog report said on Monday, and recommended extending social security measures for such workers and their families in partnership mode as envisaged in Code on Social Security. The report titled 'India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy' further said gig workers are expected to form 6.7 per cent of the non-agricultural workforce or 4.1 per cent of the total livelihood in India by 2029-30. Gig workers can be broadly classified into platform and non-platform workers.
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.
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.
Planet Earth welcomed its 8th billion inhabitant on Tuesday, a remarkable milestone for humanity that is set to propel India to become the world's most populous country next year, surpassing China amid rising global challenges.
India's unemployed, the report said, were mostly those with higher education degrees and the young.
India has the lowest labour force participation rate in South Asia and one of the lowest in the world, points out Aakar Patel.
'These are the people that have worked for you. These are the people who have served you all their careers. You send them out to live in the rain. Is that your definition of ethics when you treat your labour force that way?' the titan asks.
Retail sales of cars are back to January 2018 levels in August 2021. Two-wheeler retail sales are 22 per cent lower, nearly four years down the line.
The country's demographic dividend is dissipating, with seriously adverse consequences for young India, asserts Shankar Acharya, former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.
Jobs in HR, administration and recruitment have seen a substantial rise as per Monster data with a 42% growth in job posting activity.
The labour force fell from 43.97 crore in 2016-17 to 42.61 crore in 2017-18
'Falling labour participation rate is common in the ageing populations of the developed world.' 'But India is a country with a young population.' 'It is imperative that the labour participation increases.' 'We need a larger labour force to increase our per capita income level,' points out Mahesh Vyas.
'The large scale and widespread shrinking of the labour force in November, the peaking of unemployment in October and the fall in lead indicators in October and November point towards a worsening of the slowdown of the Indian economy in the third quarter of 2019-20,' says Mahesh Vyas.
The thing is that unemployment and joblessness are a personally felt shame. It is not easy to mobilise a set of people who identify with others as a group that cannot get work, asserts Aakar Patel.
The second wave of COVID-19 and the resultant localised lockdowns have impacted over 75 lakh jobs, taking the unemployment rate to a four-month high of 8 per cent, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said on Monday. The situation on the employment front is expected to continue to remain challenging going forward as well, CMIE's managing director and chief executive Mahesh Vyas said.
'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.
Nothing in India's recent history suggests that India can provide 8-9 million jobs a year, let alone generate 50 million jobs in any reasonable time, notes Mahesh Vyas.
The economy faces more downside risks now as economic disruptions arising from the second wave are likely to stabilise only from July, warned the Swiss brokerage USB Securities. Last month, the brokerage had cut its GDP forecast by 150 bps to 10 per cent for FY22, which though is much higher than the consensus projections by others with some pegging it at as low as 8 per cent. Though adverse impacts on sequential growth is less severe than in the June 2020 quarter when it plunged by 23.9 per cent, as lockdowns are more targeted and localised and households and businesses have adjusted to the new normal now, still, it is increasingly possible that normalcy returns only by July as against our baseline assumption of June.
Neither the CAA nor the proposed NRC are important enough to stake the well-being of so many or stake economic growth. Getting growth back on track is more important, notes 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.
Unemployment was worse only in the pre-demonetisation period, according to the data, at 9.6 per cent in August 2016.
A report by the Azim Premji University showed that during the pandemic 270 million Indians were pushed into poverty. Meaning that they were not poor according to the government poverty line before, but have become now. Aakar Patel mulls on the state of the nation as the Modi government enters its eighth year.
Business activity has fallen by a fourth of the pre-COVID levels due to lockdowns imposed by states to contain the spread of the second wave of COVID-19, Japanese brokerage Nomura said on Tuesday. However, it said the falling activity levels will have a muted economic impact and maintained its growth estimates for the year, saying the lockdowns present "downside risks". As of April 25, the Nomura India Business Resumption Index (NIBRI) registered its steepest weekly fall in over a year of 8.5 percentage points to 75.9, which is 24 percentage points below pre-pandemic normal, the brokerage said in a statement.
Releasing the survey report after taking into account the expert committee recommendations, Statistics Secretary Pravin Srivastava told reporter, "It is a new design and a new matrix. It would be unfair to compare it with the past. This 45- year high is your interpretation. I don't want to claim that it is 45-year low or high."
Accelerating quantity and quality of entrepreneurship towards benchmarks from high-performing countries and Indian states can create over 30 million women-owned enterprises, of which 12 million can generate employment, a joint report by Bain & Company and Google said.
An additional 68 million women could potentially enter the labour force over the coming decade.
With India poised to become the largest economy in the world by 2030, it cannot afford to leave half of its workforce behind.
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Female labour force participation in India is lower than many other EM economies.
'COVID-19 is just an excuse to pass anti-labour laws.'
If the government is able to deliver the promised projects, the large number of youth will be taken off the streets and that is not acceptable to the Pakistan army nor the terrorists hiding in Pakistan, notes Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
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