New Delhi, May 8 (IANS). Informal employment continues to dominate all states in the country and as of now the focus should be on increasing formalization of the workforce and expanding social security coverage. This information was given in the report of SBI Research.
SBI Research reported that female workers are 4.8 percent more likely to be informal workers than male workers, while workers in the construction sector are 4.5 percent more likely to be engaged in informal employment compared to the agriculture sector.
“Government training plays an important role in promoting self-employment among women. Our results show that government grants increase the likelihood of self-employment by 5.8 percent,” the report said.
Punjab has the highest share of informal workers at 82 percent, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Bihar at 81 percent.
Levels of informal employment are also high in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where about 74 percent of workers are engaged in informal jobs.
“The higher levels of informality in the northern and central states may be linked to the dominance of agriculture, wage labor and low-productivity employment activities,” the report said.
The report further said that states with relatively diverse industrial and service sector activities such as Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Karnataka have relatively low levels of informal employment.
Informal workers are mainly concentrated in rural areas, with about 59 percent of them in rural areas, while urban areas account for about 41 percent of the informal workforce.
The industry structure of informal workers shows that agriculture is the largest source of informal employment, accounting for about 42 percent of the informal workforce, followed by trade and hotels (17 percent) and other service activities (14 percent).
India’s labor force is undergoing structural change, with the share of agriculture in the workforce declining over a period of 37 years from 66 per cent in 1987-88 to 43 per cent in 2023-24, a decline of 23 per cent.
Due to the renewed boost to the manufacturing sector by the government, large enterprises (more than 20 employees) now employ 13.7 per cent of the total workforce, significantly up from 10.8 per cent in 2024.
–IANS
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