The recent budget announcement of five major employment-related schemes, with an ambitious ₹2 lakh crore outlay over five years, aims to create jobs, enhance skills, and provide opportunities for 4.1 crore youth. While these initiatives mark a significant step towards addressing unemployment, several challenges persist that must be addressed to ensure sustainable and dignified mass employment.
The Need for Productivity and Public Investment
- For mass employment to be both sustainable and dignified, there is a need to focus on increasing productivity. This involves urging the private sector to create jobs, as suggested by the Economic Survey( the reasons being lower taxes since 2019 and higher profits post the COVID-19 pandemic).Furthermore, there is a need for greater public investment in high-quality public goods, such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure, which can support higher productivity and better employment outcomes.
|
Persistent Challenges in Employment and Wages
- Low Wages:
One of the most pressing challenges is the low wage structure in India. The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2019-20 revealed that earning ₹25,000 per month places a worker in the top 10% of wage earners. This highlights the stark reality of low income levels for the majority of the workforce. Low wages not only impede the ability of workers to lead a dignified life but also undermine the effectiveness of employment initiatives aimed at improving economic well-being.
- Short-Duration Skill Programs:
Another critical issue is the limited success of short-duration skill development programs. While these programs are designed to quickly upskill the workforce, their long-term placement rates have been low. Many participants find that the wages offered after completing such programs are insufficient to sustain a dignified life in urban areas, leading them to return to their villages in search of alternative employment. This highlights the need for a more integrated approach that links education and skills in a continuous manner, ensuring that workers are better equipped for higher-paying and sustainable jobs.
Enroll now for UPSC Online Course
The Importance of Linking Education, Skills, and Employment
- Evidence suggests that states with higher per capita consumption, such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, and Sikkim, also have better human development indicators. These states have invested in robust higher secondary and vocational education systems, which have contributed to higher productivity and better employment outcomes.
- In contrast, states like Odisha, despite promoting short-duration skilling programs, struggle with low per capita consumption due to the lack of strong educational and vocational training infrastructure.
- This highlights the importance of a continuum between education and skills, ensuring that workers are not only trained but also able to secure and retain well-paying jobs.
|
Public Employment and State Involvement
Lastly, it is important to note that public employment per unit of population in India is much lower than in most developed countries. The state has a significant role to play in creating employment opportunities, not just through direct public sector jobs but also by setting conducive conditions for the private sector to thrive while ensuring workers’ rights and dignity are upheld.
Key Policy Initiatives for Creating Sustainable Mass Employment with Dignity
Skilling Needs:
1. Community Action:
- Begin with decentralised community action to identify skilling needs.
- Ownership of state programs can be fostered through direct community involvement.
- Local bodies like gram sabhas or basti samitis in urban areas can play a critical role in delivering government programs to the people.
- Steps include creating a register of all individuals seeking employment/self-employment and developing personalised plans in partnership with professionals at the cluster level.
- Well-educated professionals should be appointed on fixed terms at the local government level to ensure evidence-based outcomes.
- Use these registers to find skill providers and employers, and base apprenticeships on community connections.
2. Convergence of Initiatives:
- Converge initiatives for education, health, skills, nutrition, livelihoods, and employment at the local government level with women’s collectives.
- This approach will ensure community accountability with untied funds, functions, and functionaries for effective quality outcomes.
- Employment improvement is interconnected with other human development indicators. Devolving and converging these efforts can enhance outcomes.
- Invest more in sectors like education, health, nutrition, environment, and sanitation through decentralised community action.
Check Out UPSC CSE Books From PW Store
Education and Employability
3. Vocational Courses:
- Introduce need-based vocational courses/certificate programs alongside undergraduate degrees (B.A., B.Sc., B.Com.) in every college.
- Make these programs compulsory and provide resources for experimentation, such as courses in tourism and counselling.
- Thai will also help make the graduation programmes employable.
4. Standardisation of Health-Care Courses:
- Standardise nursing and allied health-care professional courses in all states according to international benchmarks.
- Address the issue of uneven quality of institutions and lack of standardised course curricula.
5. Community Caregivers:
- Create community cadres of caregivers to run universal crèches, enabling women to work without fear.
- Implement intensive training programs for caregivers, following the model of Community Resource Persons in the Rural Livelihood Mission.
6. Invest in Technical Institutions:
- Invest in Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics as hubs for skill development.
- Address gaps in infrastructure(e.g. By providing advanced machines and instruments) and make these institutions autonomous and community-managed.
- Develop an equivalence framework for academic and vocational inputs.
7. Enterprise and Start-Up Skills:
- Introduce enterprise and start-up skills through professionals in high schools, incorporating technology and business processes into the curriculum.
- Facilitate experimentation and innovation as part of regular school programs. Example: School Students set a stall in the canteen as a part of fun activity.
8. Apprenticeship Co-Sharing Model:
- Implement a co-sharing model of apprenticeships with industry to ensure skilling costs are shared and to foster industry involvement in apprenticeships.
Check Out UPSC NCERT Textbooks From PW Store
Capital Loans and Enterprises
9. Streamline Working Capital Loans:
- Streamline working capital loans for women-led enterprises and first-generation businesses to scale up.
- Leverage technology to create comprehensive credit histories and boost lending confidence.
- The lessons from the lakhpati didis of the Rural Livelihoods Mission bring out the challenges in getting working capital loans.
- The success of the Start Up Village Enterprise Programme (SVEP) under the NRLM brings out the importance of hand holding, Community Enterprise Fun and end-to-end solutions for first generation entrepreneurs.
10. Universal Skill Accreditation:
- Start a universal skill accreditation program for skill providers, with state and industry jointly sponsoring candidates.
11. MGNREGA Investments:
- Use 70% of MGNREGA funds in water-scarce and high-deprivation blocks, focusing on livelihood security through income-generating initiatives.
- Focus on skills for higher productivity of MGNREGA wage earners
- Improve wage rates to facilitate dignified living in poor regions.
12. Scale Up Apprenticeships:
- Increase the scale of apprenticeships and ensure they contribute to skill acquisition and workplace absorption.
- The focus must be on skill acquisition or else it can get routinised with a
- stipend being provided, merely as an incentive.
- Ensure government subsidies are tied to wages of dignity upon successful completion of apprenticeships.
Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes
August 21, 2024
