{"id":121412,"date":"2021-09-15T03:44:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T03:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=121412"},"modified":"2021-09-15T03:44:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T03:44:08","slug":"19-lakh-jobs-were-lost-in-august-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/19-lakh-jobs-were-lost-in-august-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"19 lakh jobs were lost in August 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
Labour seems to have found employment as maids, cooks, gardeners, security guards and the like — a transition that could be described as from farms to the kitchen sink, instead of farms to factories, observes Mahesh Vyas.<\/strong><\/p>\n Headline labour statistics for August 2021 were disappointing as expected.<\/p>\n Weekly estimates had forewarned this outcome.<\/p>\n They showed that the unemployment rate was rising steadily from around 7 per cent in July to over 8 per cent.<\/p>\n It was over 8 per cent in each of the four weeks of August, and the employment rate had fallen sharply towards the end of the month.<\/p>\n Final estimates for August 2021 show that the unemployment rate increased to 8.3 per cent from 7 per cent in July.<\/p>\n The employment rate dropped from 37.4 per cent in July to 37.2 per cent in August and employment in absolute terms shrunk from 399.7 million in July to 397.8 million.<\/p>\n On a net basis, 1.9 million jobs were lost during the month.<\/p>\n The composition of this fall in employment in August reveals the challenges India faces in providing jobs.<\/p>\n The loss was essentially in farm jobs.<\/p>\n Non-farm jobs increased to absorb a very large proportion of the jobs shed in the farm sector to leave a net deficit of 1.9 million jobs.<\/p>\n However, the non-farm jobs that expanded were mostly not the kind that could be considered good quality jobs.<\/p>\n Employment in agriculture fell by 8.7 million in August.<\/p>\n Non-farm jobs increased by 6.8 million at the same time.<\/p>\n Of these, employment in the form of business persons increased by nearly 4 million and those in the form of small traders and daily wage labourers increased by 2.1 million.<\/p>\n Salaried jobs increased marginally, by 0.7 million during the month.<\/p>\n The fall in employment in agriculture reflects the seasonal nature of employment and uncertainty caused this year by an erratic monsoon.<\/p>\n By end August 2021, the monsoon was nearly 9 per cent lower than expectations and sowing of the kharif crop was 1.7 per cent lower than a year ago.<\/p>\n Employment had averaged 124 million during the kharif crop sowing months of May, June and July.<\/p>\n In August, it fell to 116 million, which is comparable to the 114 million employed before the sowing season, in April.<\/p>\n Much of the labour shed by agriculture was absorbed in the services sectors.<\/p>\n Industry could not absorb any. On the contrary, the industrial sector shed jobs in the month.<\/p>\n Employment in the industrial sector in August 2021 was 2.5 million less than in July 2021.<\/p>\n The manufacturing sector shed 0.94 million jobs in August.<\/p>\n Factories, it seems, are not a reliable source of employment.<\/p>\n They seem to have permanently lost about 10 million jobs in the pandemic-induced lockdowns.<\/p>\n Before the Covid-19 crisis, the manufacturing sector employed about 40 million.<\/p>\n This fell to 21 million in April 2020 and quickly climbed back to a level just short of 30 million by July 2020.<\/p>\n But then it took till February 2021 to reach the 30-million mark.<\/p>\n Then, the second wave brought employment in manufacturing down again to 26 million.<\/p>\n By July this had recovered to nearly 29 million.<\/p>\n But in August, this slipped back to 28 million.<\/p>\n This fall in August is disappointing.<\/p>\n The 40-million level that manufacturing was at before the lockdowns seems too distant now, almost out of reach.<\/p>\n The fall of nearly a million jobs from the sector in August reveals how unreliable manufacturing jobs have become.<\/p>\n The services sector provided 8.5 million additional jobs in August.<\/p>\n The big absorbers of employment within the services sector in August were personal non-professional services and retail trade.<\/p>\n Personal non-professional services are distinct from providers of professional services to households suc as lawyers or tax or investment consultants.<\/p>\n Non-professional service providers include house-maids, home cooks, beauticians, masseurs, gymnasium trainers, barbers, plumbers, gardeners, security guards, handy-men and such.<\/p>\n The increase in such jobs in August was a significant 4.7 million.<\/p>\n Total employment in this category, at about 30 million, is comparable to the employment in manufacturing.<\/p>\n But this was down to 23.9 million in June and July. August pencilled a partial recovery as this type of employment climbed back to 28.6 million.<\/p>\n The other services sector that saw an increase in employment in August was retail trade. Employment in this industry reached a record 64.4 million.<\/p>\n It was 59.9 million in July.<\/p>\n The industry, therefore, saw an increase of 4.5 million jobs in the month.<\/p>\n Given that salaried jobs increased by only 0.94 million, most of these jobs in the retail trade industry are likely to be informal in nature.<\/p>\n Non-professional personal services are almost entirely informal jobs as well.<\/p>\n Evidently, most of the gross increase in employment of over 9 million in these two sectors was mostly informal.<\/p>\n Excess or seasonal labour released from agriculture usually finds its way to construction sites.<\/p>\n In better times, this is part of the transition from farms to factories.<\/p>\n But, the construction industry itself shed over half a million jobs in August.<\/p>\n And, manufacturing shed nearly a million.<\/p>\n In these circumstances, labour seems to have found employment in the household sector as maids, cooks, gardeners, security guards and the like — a transition that could be described as from farms to the kitchen sink, instead of farms to factories.<\/p>\n We had seen earlier that a reverse migration from factories from farms was under way.<\/p>\n The next migration should not be to the kitchen sink.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mahesh Vyas is MD & CEO, CMIE P Ltd<\/strong><\/p>\n Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani\/Rediff.com<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n