Worrisome willingness to work

The ratio of all adults in the land willing to work, whether employed or unemployed, to its total population is being tracked by a private agency monitoring Indian economy. That index juxtaposed to unemployment rate, namely the ratio of unemployed to total labour force in the population of the land. The two ratios, according to analysts in the agency, have a mutually complementary relation. The first ratio, called Labour Participation Rate (LPR) rises as the unemployment rate also rises. With that postulate, a rising trend in unemployment rate may be considered as a good sign. Economists are of the view that an unemployment rate of below four percent in India, as officially claimed, could be considered as close to full employment. However, as most people would agree, although the nation is bracketed with top four or five strong economies globally, we don’t have full employment, in fact far from it. Also, not many would contest the view that most Indians choose not to work.

Willingness to work on the part of the unemployed sections in the population is to be wholeheartedly welcomed. As for the employed sections, particularly those drawing their salaries from public funds, unwillingness to work, barring exceptions, seems to be a reality and, therefore, worrisome. But, worrying and not addressing the task of a makeover to willingness to work is only tokenism as it were.

Word Bank statistics, as quoted by the aforementioned monitoring agency, show that there were only seven countries in the world that had a Labour Participation Rate (that is, population of adults willing to work) less than that of India, namely 43 percent, the latest available data. Further, India’s position in the matter of willingness of adults to work is 35 from the bottom among 200 countries surveyed. The International Labour Organisation has estimated the world average of the labour participation rate at 63 percent and that of China at 71 percent and Pakistan 54 percent. The hypothesis that an increase in unemployment rate is to be welcomed as it reflects a rise in the labour participation passes scrutiny only on condition of adults willing to work following their employment. Not otherwise.

Finally, low unemployment rate in the country, published officially, cannot be de-linked from the reality of low incomes. The price that the nation is currently paying for its mass of employed adults in multitude of sectors not willing to work, including the well-paid sections, has crossed astronomical proportions.