But a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) says that 77% of Indian workers will be engaged in vulnerable employment by 2019.
This is in keeping with what labour experts in India have been cautioning against for years now — the alarming increase in the turn towards vulnerable forms of employment.
In fact, there is a rise the world over in vulnerable employment, as noted by the ILO report. Globally, around 1.4 billion workers are estimated to be in vulnerable employment in 2017, with an additional 17 million expected to join per year in 2018 and 2019.
‘Vulnerable employment’ is characterised by meagre earnings (below minimum wage), difficult and insecure working conditions (for example, workers are made to work long and taxing shifts; they can be hired and fired without notice at any point), unsafe work environments, and complete violation of labour laws.
The workers at the Bawana factory, for example, were being paid a paltry Rs 150-200 per day for a 10-hour work shift, without any other benefit or social security, while all labour laws and safety norms were obviously being violated.
However, the ILO report—titled World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2018—defines ‘vulnerable employment’ narrowly as the sum of own-account workers [self-employed without paid employees, usually a one-person enterprise] and contributing family workers.
But most labour experts and economists in India define ‘vulnerable employment’ as encompassing contractual workers in the organised sector as well as workers in the unorganised sector.
The ILO report says that whatever progress was achieved in the past in reducing vulnerable employment had essentially stalled since 2012.
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