In January-March 2017,
regular jobs rose while jobs for contract workers slowed to 26,000
against 1,24,000 in the previous quarter.
New Delhi: The
government’s demonetisation of high-value currency notes in November
last year affected job creation among daily wagers and contract workers,
even as regular jobs continued to grow, shows the latest official
survey of enterprises, issued by the Labour Bureau.
During
January-March 2017, job creation stood at 185,000 against 122,000 in
October-December 2016 and 32,000 in July-September 2016, according to
the bureau’s fifth quarterly report on employment. The report covers
eight sectors – manufacturing, construction, trade, transport,
accommodation and restaurants, information technology (IT), education
and health. These constituted 81% of all employment provided by
enterprises with a workforce of more than 10 each.
The survey
showed regular jobs rose by 1,97,000 in January-March 2017, compared
with job creation of 1,39,000 the previous quarter. However, the pace
among contract workers slowed to 26,000 in January-March, against
1,24,000 in the previous quarter. Casual workers — getting wages on a
daily basis — declined by 53,000 in the fourth quarter of 2016-17. The
fall was a bit slower than a drop of 152,000 the previous quarter.
Experts
said that there was a shift in the nature of jobs, instead of job loss,
after the government decided to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and
Rs 1,000 on November 8 last year.
“In the organised sector,
there was an uptick in employment of fulltime workers who were paid by
cheques or through bank accounts but the number of contract and casual
workers, paid by cash, declined during this phase,” said Pronab Sen,
country director, IGC’s India Central Programme and former chief
statistician to the government.
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