scorecardresearch
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
TopicLabour force

Topic: Labour force

Data on unpaid labour divides economists. But they agree on one thing: real rural wages have stagnated

India’s employment data flawed, argues economist Santosh Mehrotra, citing unpaid family labour & sectoral shifts. UFL falling as share in total workforce, counters Surjit Bhalla.

India mustn’t skip the manufacturing train. Services alone won’t tap into demographic dividend

Jobs, while they increased by 11.2 crore during the Modi years, are the Achilles’ heel of India’s development as labour participation remains low and the informal sector dominates.

85% of platform-based gig workers put in 8 hrs daily but don’t get basic social security — NGO survey

Non-profit's survey of 5,000-plus gig workers engaged with 20-plus platforms finds that these are full-time jobs. Report points to issues of health, income security & lack of regulation.

More Indian women are joining workforce but gender employment gap is still high, shows new report  

Latest Moody’s Analytics report shows India, Philippines have shown highest decline in gender employment gap since 2019. But the disparity for India is still 4 times that of US, EU.   

Unpaid domestic work of women amounts to 7.5% of GDP, latest SBI report says

Women on average spend about 7.2 hours a day on housework, and, because they are not part of the formal workforce, neither economic quantification nor policy takes them into account.

What reports on Indian women’s falling participation in labour force don’t tell you

Critics analysing World Bank report to claim continuance of patriarchal oppression and structural barriers fail to acknowledge a critical aspect about women's economic participation in India.

Kerala’s demography is changing. But not how politicians are saying

The guests in God’s own country are carrying Kerala’s labour burden. Bengali market, Bhojpuri songs exist alongside Malayali mundus.

Real estate, IT, gig jobs, MNREGA: Making sense of India’s roller-coaster unemployment crisis

Employment in India rose from 394.6 million in August to 404.2 million in September, and while the numbers are still below pre-Covid levels, the increase is encouraging.

Who is vocational education training for? Data shows over 84% Indian didn’t get any

Periodic Labour Force Survey data shows the situation is worse for women. And those who got the training, almost half of them accounted for self-learning or ‘learning on the job’.

5 of 10 states with highest share of women legislators are from northeast. Here’s why

Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2020-2021 shows Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, and Meghalaya have India's highest female-to-male ratio vis-a-vis legislators, senior officials & managers.

On Camera

India has 30 days to pull off fast reform. Hold crash meeting of Centre & state

In India, we are accustomed to glacial change. We love appointing Committees to ‘look into’ reform. Unfortunately for us, the rest of the world moves fast.

A Rs 33,000 cr ‘banking fraud’: ED’s case against Arvind Dham, Amtek’s web of ‘500 shell companies’

ED has accused Amtek promoter Arvind Dham of controlling web of nearly 500 shell companies operating as a layered structure, with up to 15 levels of indirect ownership, to divert funds.

‘Real-time, all-climate’ explosives detector could enhance airport & border security—no dogs, no swabs

Bengaluru-based CeNS designs accurate, portable, and cheap sensor using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. It could significantly reduce risks at vulnerable choke points. 

For Indian Mercedes, Asim Munir’s dumper truck in mirror is closer than it appears

From Munir’s point of view, a few bumps here and there is par for the course. He isn’t going to drive his dumper truck to its doom. He wants to use it as a weapon.