The employment that is returning is mostly essential services required by Indian households. Most urban Indian households cannot function without a retinue of maids, cooks, drivers, cleaners, notes Mahesh Vyas.
'Usually, urban wage rates are 50 per cent higher than rural wage rates. But, this could be narrowing very rapidly now,' points out Mahesh Vyas, CEO, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
'People are getting back to work.' 'The worst seems to be over.' 'It is very likely that the recovery is mostly among the informal, self-employed, workers who cannot afford to be away from work for too long,' notes Mahesh Vyas.
'Over 27 million youngsters in their 20s lost their jobs in April.' '33 million men and women in their 30s lost jobs in April,' points out 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.
'The impact of economic shocks on the labour markets is usually on the young who delay their entry in response to a fall in job opportunities,' says Mahesh Vyas.
'Wage earners are shrinking. In both, the organised and unorganised sectors. And, entrepreneurs are growing.' 'But the increase in entrepreneurship is of a kind that does not create salaried employment or daily wage employment,' says Mahesh Vyas.
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 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 high unemployment rate being witnessed today is not only the highest in three years but is far more debilitating for the economy than the similar unemployment rates witnessed in 2016,' says Mahesh Vyas.
'The 5.3% growth in wages per employee is the lowest growth in nine years,' points out Mahesh Vyas.
Users of employment / unemployment statistics can enjoy the benefits of -- initially the speed of private enterprise and then, the stamp of official statistics with a hopefully small time lag, says Mahesh Vyas.
It keeps getting harder every day for the government to drive its narrative that ample jobs are being created. They sound increasingly silly as they try to defend the indefensible, says Mahesh Vyas.
The BJP needs to worry about the kinds of professions it has landed up glorifying -- chai vendors, pakora vendors and now guards. These are not professions that any one of its voters would like to cherish, points out Mahesh Vyas.
It's high time we now turn the popular question on its head -- when there is no growth in jobs for several years, how can the real GDP grow at 7 per cent per annum, says Mahesh Vyas.
Rural and urban regions present different labour participation and employment levels. These differences also are not tuned to India exploiting its demographic dividend, says Mahesh Vyas.
If everyone had decent meaningful jobs, the rally maidans would be largely empty and, save for the Akhara babas and curious foreigners and the devout senior citizens, not very many would spare time for the Kumbh Mela, says Mahesh Vyas.
The 30-day moving average of the unemployment rate had climbed up much ahead by January 6, to 7.8%, says Mahesh Vyas.
The key to job creation is to increase labour participation - draw more people into the labour force and to provide them formal jobs in the organised sectors. Self-employment is not job creation, says, Mahesh Vyas.
Can 3 crore out of the 8.9 crore young male population of the nine states set off on a pilgrimage that extends for about a month? If yes, then what can we infer regarding the state of the young working population in these states, asks Mahesh Vyas.
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