How to Create More Employment

💼 How to Create More Employment

🧭 Strategy Mix

  • 🌾 Improving Agriculture Sector: Public investment/loans for wells and irrigation; build dams/canals → absorbs underemployment within agriculture.
  • 🏦 Cheap Credit Facilities: Shift farmers from informal lenders to bank credit at lower rates.
  • 🛣️ Provision of Basic Facilities: Invest in roads, transport, banking, markets → multiplies local jobs.
  • 🏭 Promotion of Local Industries: Support cottage & small-scale industries in semi-rural areas.
  • 🎓🩺 Improve Education & Health: Create teaching/health jobs (e.g., ~20 lakh in education alone); need more doctors, nurses, health workers in rural areas.
  • 🧳🧵💻 Develop New Services: Tourism, regional crafts, IT—requires planning & government support.

🛡️ MGNREGA (2005) — Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

Aims to enhance livelihood security in rural households by guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment per financial year.

  • 📅 100 days of guaranteed employment every year.
  • 💸 Unemployment allowance if work isn’t provided.
  • ⚖️ Application of the “right to work” ethic; equal wage–equal work.
  • 🎯 Focus on SC/ST and poor women; at least one-third beneficiaries are women.

🏢 Working Conditions: Organised vs Unorganised Sector

1) 🗂️ Organised Sector

Definition: Enterprises/places of work with regular employment terms, registered with government, and compliant with labour laws (e.g., Factories Act, Minimum Wages Act, Payment of Gratuity Act, Shops & Establishments).

✅ Advantages

  • 🛡️ Job security
  • ⏱️ Fixed working hours; overtime paid if extra hours
  • 🏖️ Benefits: paid leave/holidays, PF, etc.
  • 👵 Pension after retirement (as applicable)

2) 🧰 Unorganised Sector

Definition: Not registered by the government; small, scattered units, largely outside direct regulation.

⚠️ Disadvantages

  • 💰 Very low wages
  • 🚫 No overtime, paid leave, sick leave, or holidays
  • ❌ High job insecurity; can be removed without reason
  • 👥 Many casual/landless workers; high risk of exploitation

🧑‍🏭 Protecting Workers in the Unorganised Sector

🔎 Why Protection is Needed

  • 💸 Wages: Incomes are unstable/insufficient → ensure fair, fixed wages.
  • 🛡️ Job Security: Work ends with the project (e.g., construction) → need continuity safeguards.
  • 🩺 Health & Safety: No medical/security cover; accidents aren’t employer’s responsibility → need protections.

🛠️ Measures to Protect

  • 🌱 Alternative Employment Sources: Create opportunities beyond agriculture (MSMEs, services).
  • 🏗️ Public Works Programmes: Year-round rural works, not just sowing/harvest seasons.
  • 🧾 Social Security: Expand coverage (insurance, pensions, maternity benefits) to unorganised workers.

🏛️ Ownership: Private vs Public Sector

1) 🏷️ Private Sector

Owned/managed by individuals or groups; profit motive.
Examples: Hindustan Unilever, Tata Iron & Steel, Bajaj Auto.

2) 🏟️ Public Sector

Owned/managed by government; motive: social welfare & basic needs.
Examples: Indian Railways, BHEL, Sindri Fertiliser.

🎯 Role of the Public Sector

  • 🛣️ Infrastructure: Transport, power, communication, basic industries (social overheads)
  • 🗺️ Develop Backward Areas: Set up industries where private sector won’t
  • 🏫 Basic Facilities: Schools, health services—state responsibility
  • 🚰 Social Problems: Address malnutrition, high IMR, unsafe water, etc.

📈 Contribution of Public Sector to Economic Development

  • 💵 Reasonable Cost: Provides essentials affordably where private sector may not
  • 🏗️ Heavy Industries: Capital-intensive projects beyond private capacity
  • 🫶 People’s Benefit First: Welfare over profit
  • 🥖 Support to Poor: Subsidised essentials (e.g., wheat, kerosene)
  • 🎓🩺 Education & Health: Free/nominal services for all

🧾 Key Terms (Glossary)

  1. 🏭 Economic Activities: Production/sale of goods & services (e.g., banking, farming, production).
  2. 🗂️ Sectors: Grouping of economic activities by a criterion to analyse better.
  3. 🌾 Primary Sector: Agriculture/nature-based activities; provides raw materials (e.g., agriculture, poultry).
  4. 🏭 Secondary Sector: Manufacturing; processes primary inputs (e.g., cloth from cotton, sugar from cane).
  5. 🛎️ Tertiary Sector: Services that aid production/distribution (e.g., banking, insurance, IT).
  6. ⚙️ Intermediate Goods: Used up in producing final goods; excluded from GDP (e.g., flour, cotton).
  7. ✅ Final Goods: For final consumption or capital formation; included in GDP (e.g., bread, TV).
  8. 🔁 Double Counting: Counting a product’s value more than once—happens if intermediates are added into GDP.
  9. 📊 Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Market value of final goods & services produced within domestic territory in a year.
  10. 👔 Employment: Having paid work; contributes to GDP.
  11. 🚫 Unemployment: Actively seeking work but unable to find a job; no GDP contribution.
  12. 🫥 Disguised Unemployment: More people employed than needed; workers under-utilised.
  13. 🏟️ Public Sector: Government-owned/managed; motive: social welfare.
  14. 🏷️ Private Sector: Individual/group-owned; motive: profit.
  15. 🗂️ Organised Sector: Registered, regulated; regular employment terms and benefits.
  16. 🧰 Unorganised Sector: Not registered; small, scattered units outside tight regulation.
  17. 🛡️ MGNREGA (2005): Guarantees 100 days of rural wage employment per household per year (also called NREGA/MNREGA).

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