India ‘needs to promote labour-intensive industries for job’
While India is experiencing 7% economic growth, the government needs to do more to boost the creation of more jobs, according to the Reserve Bank’s of India’s (RBI) former governor Raghuram Rajan, who has suggested focus needs to be on promoting labour-intensive industries.
Rajan, now a professor of finance at US-based Chicago Booth, also said that while some Indians are comfortable and enjoy high incomes, consumption growth from the lower sector of the country has still not recovered to pre-pandemic level.
“That is the unfortunate part. You would think with 7% growth we would be creating a lot of jobs. But if you look at our manufacturing growth, it is more capital intensive,” he told the Press Trust of India (PTI).
“It is not going well at the lower level. I think the desperate need is for jobs. And you can see this, forget the official statistics. You can see it in the number of applications for government jobs, which is overwhelming,” he said.
He said that in the medium term, the Indian economy will grow at 6-7 per cent.
While welcoming the apprenticeship schemes announced by the finance minister in this year’s Budget, Rajan said: “We have to monitor that very closely, see what works and expand what works much more." Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced in the Union Budget of FY25 that the government will launch three employment-linked schemes based on enrolment in Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).
When asked about Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates rationalisation, Rajan said after a policy has run for a fair amount of time it is useful to ask whether it had been a success and whether it needs to be updated.
“I would appoint an expert committee to go into it, to take the opinions, just like the Finance Commission does, take the opinions of the various stakeholders, including the states, and come up with something that meets the needs of the country,” he said.
Currently, GST is a four-tier tax structure with rates of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. The new taxation regime came into effect in 2017.
Salaried employees work longer hours than casual workers, survey finds
A new government survey has found that salaried employees, especially those working in corporate environments, are putting in significantly more hours each week than their casual or self-employed counterparts.
According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for July 2023-June 2024, regular wage earners are clocking an average of 48.2 hours a week, compared with just under 40 hours for casual labourers and the self-employed.
The report said: “This difference in work hours isn’t just a statistic; it paints a picture of the demanding corporate work culture that salaried employees face. Tight deadlines, high expectations, and the ever-present need for productivity are stretching working hours to new extremes.”
For many corporate workers, these 48-hour weeks translate to roughly nine hours of work each day if they’re working five days a week, or eight hours if it’s a six-day working week.
While some HR experts argue that these hours aren’t necessarily overwhelming, others suggest that it’s not just the number of hours that matter – more important is the working environment.
According to Kartik Narayan, CEO-Staffing, TeamLease Services, salaried employees, especially in corporate and service sectors, are decidedly under greater work stress.
“Salaried employees, particularly in corporate and service sectors, often face increasing workloads due to heightened demands for productivity, tight deadlines, and evolving client expectations,” he said.
He said casual and self-employed workers tend to have more control over their schedules, albeit at the cost of income stability. “While their work hours are typically lower, these categories of workers often engage in physically demanding roles or work that is subject to fluctuations based on market demand.”
The survey is conducted for India’s Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). PLFS was launched in 2017 to estimate key employment and unemployment indicators. The objective of PLFS is primarily to estimate key employment and unemployment indicators.
