0Unemployment in India
Unemployment is one of the scourges in the developed countries and one of the greatest problem for the developing countries. Human beings are the means as well as the ends of production. So it should be borne in mind that they should neither be treated as only means nor as only ends. If there is no manpower planning, it is not possible for the country to get rid of frustration and consequently the rebellious tendencies are generated among the masses. For a democratic country unemployment is a blot which cannot be washed off by all the welfare functions which the Government might be performing. It will not be incorrect to say that the very institution of democracy becomes weak if the number of unemployed people abnormally increase in a country. Apart from it as manpower of a country is not fully utilized there are no chances of developing the economy of the country on the appropriate lines. The process of development necessitates the enlargement and the diversification of industries which demands more manpower of various degrees and skills. Similarly education will have to be job-oriented. Since the supply of manpower cannot be decreased so the demand for it should be increased by proper planning in the Public and the Private Sectors. For India unemployment cannot be more disastrous than it can be in other countries.
India is an under-developed country. That is why the nature of unemployment is completely different from what it is available in more advanced countries. It is definitely not the result of the deficiency of effective demand rate it is because the resources and the potentialities have not been fully utilized. In India there is what is called by the economists ‘frictional unemployment and also under-employment or disguised unemployment’. It is the consequence of the shortage of the capital equipment or the other necessary resources. We can find a remedy for this unemployment in expanding the stock of capital assets or units of production. The nature of unemployment in rural India is somewhat different from the urban places. Rural unemployment has two aspects – seasonal and perennial. As agriculture is the most important occupation in the rural areas so a large number of the people remain unemployed for a number of months during the year. The small scale industries could not be properly developed in the rural areas and handicraft has almost died out. Apart from it there is perennial unemployment. About 72 per cent of the working population is engaged in the primary sector and as a result of it there is no increase in the area of cultivation though there has been increase of population engaged in agriculture. The result is that the marginal productivity of increased population is almost zero. The workers are employed but actually they do not get even subsistence wages, and their income is fantastically low. Moreover this unemployment is spread over the entire agricultural population.
The problem of urban unemployment is a complex one. Unemployment can be categorized under two heads: unemployment among industrial labourers and unemployment among the educated middle class. With urbanisation a large number of people from the villages have shifted to the cities but the rate of expansion of industries has not been keeping pace with the shifting of the workers. As far as urban unemployment among the educated is concerned it is more alarming. In fact the education is a sort of learning, writing and reading with very little emphasis on technical education. Recently there has been development of technical education but the fields are so limited in number that there seems to be no diversification. As a result of it there are a very large number of the unemployed educated people in India. Unemployment is dangerous; Sadler Commission pointed out “the existence and the steady increase of a sort of intellectual proletariats not without reasonable grievances forms a menace to a good Government especially in a country where…. The small educated classes are vocal.”
Economics have discovered various causes of the unemployment in India. According to Dantawala Committee, “in and economy like this there is very little open or outright unemployment but there would be considerable seasonal unemployment and or under-employment.” This is somewhat eccentric type of view which the Committee has given because unemployment is not the result of the factors which Committee keeps in mind. Despite the best efforts, i.e., the creation of Directorate General of Employment and Training as well as Employment Exchanges it has not been possible to help the educated and others to get suitable employment. Even the Five Year Plans have failed to achieve the objective and with every successive plan the percentage of unemployment has all the time increased. At the end of the First Plan the unemployment was 2.9% but at the end of the Fifth Plan it rose to 5.6%. It has been estimated by the Bhagwati Committee that the unemployment will go on increasing every year till effective steps are taken. In fact the exploitation of the resources and providing the employment opportunities to the job seekers have not been properly undertaken by the Government. Similarly studies made by the N.S.S. show that under-employment has also been on the increase. Similar is the case with the disguised unemployment. The economists have not taken up the empirical studies about the magnitude of this type of unemployment so far. Some initial estimates show that in India nearly seventeen percent of the labour suffers from this type of unemployment.
