Labour in India

Deaths due to long working hours per 100,000 people (15+), joint study conducted by World Health Organization and International Labor Organization in 2016.[1]
Average annual hours actually worked per worker in OECD countries from 1970 to 2020

Labour in India refers to employment in the economy of India. In 2020, there were around 476.67 million workers in India, the second largest after China.[2] Out of which, agriculture industry consist of 41.19%, industry sector consist of 26.18% and service sector consist 32.33% of total labour force.[2] Of these over 94 percent work in unincorporated, unorganised enterprises ranging from pushcart vendors to home-based diamond and gem polishing operations.[3][4] The organised sector includes workers employed by the government, state-owned enterprises and private sector enterprises. In 2008, the organised sector employed 27.5 million workers, of which 17.3 million worked for government or government owned entities.[5]

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative[6] finds that India is only doing 43.9% of what should be possible at its level of income for the right to work.[7] Due to lax labor rules that apply to all businesses in India, laborers are frequently exploited by their bosses in contrast to developed nations.[8][9][10][11] According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Indians have one of the longest average work weeks when compared with the ten largest economies globally. The average working hours in India are approximately 47.7 hours per week.[12][13] This places India seventh on the list of countries that work the most globally.[12][13] Despite having one of the longest working hours, India has one of the lowest work productivity levels in the world.[14][15][16][17][18]

  1. ^ https://who-ilo-joint-estimates.shinyapps.io/OccupationalBurdenOfDisease/
  2. ^ a b "Labour force". CIA, United States. 2020.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference pcoi was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Chandra Korgaokar; Geir Myrstad (1997). "Protecting children in the world of work (see article on Child Labour in the Diamond Industry)". International Labour Organization. pp. 51–53. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013.
  5. ^ "Economic Survey 2010-2011" (PDF). The Government of India. 2012.
  6. ^ "Human Rights Measurement Initiative – The first global initiative to track the human rights performance of countries". humanrightsmeasurement.org. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  7. ^ "India – HRMI Rights Tracker". rightstracker.org. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  8. ^ Schultz, Kai; Paton, Elizabeth; Jay, Phyllida (11 March 2020). "Luxury's Hidden Indian Supply Chain". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  9. ^ "Perspective | Child labor: The inconvenient truth behind India's growth story". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  10. ^ "Indian factory workers supplying major brands allege routine exploitation". BBC News. 17 November 2020. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  11. ^ Paton, Elizabeth (6 February 2019). "Made for Next to Nothing. Worn by You?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  12. ^ a b "Statistics on working time".
  13. ^ a b "Maybe not 70 hours, but Indians are among hardest workers in the world". November 2023.
  14. ^ Dougherty, S., R. Herd and T. Chalaux (2009), "What is holding back productivity growth in India ?: Recent microevidence", OECD Journal: Economic Studies, vol. 2009/1, doi:10.1787/eco_studies-v2009-art3-en.
  15. ^ Sapovadia, Vrajlal K., Low Productivity: India’s Bottleneck of Growth (May 21, 2019). Available at SSRN: SSRN 3391621 or doi:10.2139/ssrn.3391621
  16. ^ Bloom, Nicholas, Aprajit Mahajan, David McKenzie, and John Roberts. 2010. "Why Do Firms in Developing Countries Have Low Productivity?" American Economic Review, 100 (2): 619–23. doi:10.1257/aer.100.2.619
  17. ^ Sivadasan, Jagadeesh. "Barriers to Competition and Productivity: Evidence from India" The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, vol. 9, no. 1, 2009. doi:10.2202/1935-1682.2161
  18. ^ Goldar, B., Krishna, K.L., Aggarwal, S.C. et al. Productivity growth in India since the 1980s: the KLEMS approach. Ind. Econ. Rev. 52, 37–71 (2017). doi:10.1007/s41775-017-0002-y