economic policy & Labour

Towards Socialism of the Twenty-First Century

THE collapse of the Soviet Union was a sigh of relief to the imperialist forces of the world who were desperately trying to suffocate the emerging alternative that in a lightning pace not only could achieve the growth and development of the advanced economies of the world but more importantly could offer an alternative system against the global hegemony of capital.In 1931, Stalin remarked that Russia was about fifty to hundred years behind the level of growth of productive forces achieved by advanced capitalist countries and that gap needs to be covered within ten years.

Concerns of Service-led Growth and Employment

THE trajectory of growth in India is often characterised by a service led growth which seems to be a general pattern of many developing countries undergoing pre-mature deindustrialisation. It is also evident from the fact that the importance of manufacturing and industry in India’s GDP remained more or less stagnant as the share of industry in India’s GDP only increased by 3 percentage points from an average of 24 per cent in the 1970s to 27 per cent in 2021-22.

Periodic Labour Force Survey and Youth Employment Trends

THE Periodic Labour Force Survey quarterly bulletin released by the National Statistical Office, Government of India on October 9 for the quarter April-June 2023 has attracted media attention for a 0.1 percentage point increase in worker population ratio (WPR) and 0.3 percentage point increase in labour force participation rate (LFPR) for the working age population in the urban segment compared to the previous quarter.

Income Protection and Neoliberalism

CHANGING production structures, pervasive intermittent employment and rising income inequalities have necessitated a discussion on income protection in different forms. Sometimes it is designed for a particular group or segment of population on condition of satisfying certain social behaviours or fulfilling human development goals. In others they are conceived as unconditional and universal claiming to protect a minimum income for the citizens at large.

FDI Inflows: Employment and Technology Diffusion

A SIGNIFICANT change in the composition of global trade and investment perhaps marks the process of current phase of globalisation. Two decades before, north-north trade was around 60 per cent of the global trade, north-south trade accounted around 30 per cent and south-south trade was roughly 10 per cent of global trade, which is now almost equally distributed between these three directions of trade.

New Technology and Unemployment

THE use of new technology has triggered an anxiety of job loss across the world. In advanced countries repetitive jobs at the middle levels are increasingly being replaced by use of intelligent machines empowered by artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IOT). An array of new technologies seems to be inaugurating a technology revolution with the use of AI, IOT, big data, block chain, 5G, 3D printing, robotics, drones, gene editing, nanotechnology and solar photovoltaic.

Youth Unemployment and Growing NEET Segment

HIGH unemployment rates among youth in the past three decades have been a major concern in India’s labour market. Although unemployment rate among youth has increased during the pandemic and the rate of absorption during recovery continues to be low compared to other age groups, but it is not only related to the pandemic. In fact, for the age group 15-24, the ratio of employed people within the age group was quite high in the nineties which declined in the first two decades of the new millennium and stands at 23.2 per cent in 2020.

Food Inflation: Is It Only About Weather?

ONCE again, working people feel the heat of rise in vegetable, rice and pulses price and an increase in CPI general index in June 2023. The inflation rate is a general increase in prices, moderated since November 2022 after long episodes of high inflation. As we know that core inflation which excludes commodities such as food, fuel and light, that generally show high fluctuations in prices, remained stable after falling sharply in April-May 2023.

Consumption Growth Slows but Corporates Bag High Profits

THE recent press release by the National Statistical Office on the provisional estimates of National Income quarterly estimates for the fourth quarter (January to March) together with the provisional estimates for the year 2022-23 deserves attention. It provides estimates for GDP and related figures of 2022-23 in current and constant 2011-12 prices with the corresponding figures of 2020-21 (2nd Revised estimates) and of 2021-22 (1st Revised Estimates).The crucial headlines of the statistics from the recent press release are the following.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - economic policy & Labour