The Indian Labour Market: An Overview

The present study analyses the labour market situation in India over the last two decades. Given the growth profile, which has been quite robust in recent years, one pertinent question is whether India has experienced pro-poor growth. The paper examines a wide range of indicators, including worker population ratio, sectoral shifts in the value added composition and occupational structure, growth in value added and employment, employment status in terms of self-employment, regular wage employment and casual employment, unemployment rates, formal-informal division of employment, employment elasticity and labour productivity, and finally, the head count measure of poverty. The paper argues that there was a missing link in terms of employment between the rise in economic growth and the reduction in poverty that took place during the 1990s.