The government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey released recently shows a massive growth in the number of unpaid workers who are shown in the ‘self employed’ category.Labour economist Professor Santosh Mehrotra tells The Wire’s founding editor M.K. Venu that the unpaid workers’ number has growth from 40 million in 2017-18 to 95 million in 2022-23.He says the ILO does not define unpaid workers as employed and this system is followed in 92 countries. In India unpaid workers are about one-third of the self employed category.And self employment itself has grown from 52% of the total employed in 2017-18 to 58% of the total employed in 2022-23. This has led to a big surge in the army of unpaid workers who join small family run shops or vending units due to lack of real employment opportunities.Mehrotra also says that a lot women and youth have joined the army of unpaid workers in recent years.The other critical data in the government survey is that average monthly wages are more or less stagnant between 2017-18 at Rs 19,450 and in 2022-23 at Rs 20,039. This shows virtually no growth in average wages in 5 years, reflecting on the worsening quality of employment.This again ties in with the growing army of self employed and within that the increasing unpaid workers. Their lack of purchasing power, especially in rural areas, is also clearly manifested in the lack of growth in rural demand for consumer companies like Hindustan Lever, Bajaj Auto, etc. in recent years.
