The job question: An extensive study finds troubling facts hidden in good headline employment numbers

India’s bounce-back from the pandemic’s economic fallout was fast and sharp. In 2021-22, not only had the GDP of ₹149.25 lakh crore risen 9.1% over the previous year, it had also surpassed the preCovid level. Employment however has been a different story. Azim Premji University’s State of Working India 2023 draws together employment-related data from different GOI reports to show that the resilience of the job market, particularly for women and young graduates, has lagged that of the overall economy.

On the surface, one of the highlights of the employment data has been a sharp rise in both men and women working in the post-Covid phase and a simultaneous decline in the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate in 2021-22 was 6.6%, over two percentage points lower than the same in 2019-20. The upward trend in women’s employment has been notable. However, a fine-grained analysis by SWI 2023 report showed that there’s been a structural deterioration in the nature of women’s employment. The jump in women’s employment has been driven by self-employment, particularly in the category of unpaid work. Self-employment is generally a fallback option, which suggests that the job market for women may have worsened.

This is corroborated by the inflation-adjusted monthly earnings of the self-employed over the last five years. For sure, the monthly earnings are higher than both 2019-20 and 2020-21. But the monthly earnings of ₹12,089 in 2021-22 was lower by 2% than the same in 2017-18, the year GOI began to present annual employment data. There’s economic stress underlying the increase in women’s participation in the labour force. Little surprise then that political parties are rushing to tailor fiscal policies to provide monthly income support to women in different states. Youth unemployment has long been an area of concern. SWI showed that unemployment for highly educated job seekers (graduates and above) was over 20% till the age of 29. Subsequently, it collapses fast which does raise questions about the quality of jobs.

For decades, India’s structural transformation in the job market has lagged the growth in GDP. The term ‘jobless growth’ is shorthand for the lack of correlation between growth of GDP and employment. This phenomenon appears to have worsened for women in the post-Covid phase. It’s something that deserves more attention as the contribution of women is critical if India wants to be a developed economy.

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