Inequality, Informality, Marginality and Unemployment (IIMU) in Indian Labor Market during Covid-19 Pandemic

Keywords: Absolute surplus and relative surplus, wages and profit, wage code and labor code bills, Fiscal stimulus package, Indian labor market

Abstract

This paper examines inequality, informality, marginality and unemployment in Indian labor market during Covid-19 Pandemic. These four concepts are dynamically examined in the context of wage code, 2019 and the recent three labor codes, 2020 passed in parliament by the central government to expand the neo-liberal global capitalism agenda to increase surplus rate via higher exploitation rate of workers. The paper also critically analyses the economic package announced by the  government with insignificant share of fiscal policy measures rather monetary policy measures including loan and credit. Alternatively, this paper advocates a fiscal stimulus package to counter the challenges of lives and livelihood of the workers especially informal workers in the Indian labor market. 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

CMIE. (2020). Unemployment Rate in India. New Delhi: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Retrieved from https://unemploymentinindia.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=wsttimeseries&index_code=050050000000&dtype=total

Dennis, R. J. (2017). Wage Share in Indian Manufacturing: A Dissaggregate Analysis at Major Industry Level. Journal of Income & Wealth (The), 37(2).

ET. (2020). Adani Enterprises Q1 profit up 7-fold at Rs 570 crore. New Delhi: The Economic Times. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/earnings/adani-enterprises-q1-profit-up-7-fold-at-rs-570-crore/articleshow/70592738.cms?from=mdr

ET. (2020, July 14). Mukesh Ambani 8th richest in world as RIL tops Rs 12 lakh crore. The Economic Times. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/mukesh-ambani-8th-richest-in-world-as-ril-tops-rs-12-lakh-crore/articleshow/76950951.cms

ET. (2020). RIL Q1 results: Profit jumps 31% YoY to Rs 13,233 crore on exceptional gains, beats Street estimates. New Delhi: The Economic Times. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/earnings/ril-q1-results-profit-jumps-31-yoy-to-rs-13233-crore-beats-street-estimates/articleshow/77264860.cms?from=mdr

GHI. (2020). Global Hunger Index 2020. Retrieved from https://www.globalhungerindex.org/india.html

GOI. (2020). Economic Survey 2019-20. New Delhi: Ministry of Finance, Government of India.

Gupta, S., & Mittal, P. (2015). Base Erosion and Profit Shifting: The New Framework of International Taxation. Journal of Business Management and Information Systems, 2(2), 108–114.

Gupta, P. K., Mittal, P., & Kaur, A. (2021). Analysing time-frequency relationship between COVID-19 and FII trading activities using wavelet coherence analysis. Global Business and Economics Review, 25(3/4), 383.

Harvey, D. (2012). Neo-Liberalism and the Restoration of Class Power. Program in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center.

IE. (2020). CMIE: ‘Slump in growth starts showing: About 21 million salaried jobs lost in Apr-Aug’. New Delhi: The Indian Express. Retrieved from https://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/slump-in-growth-starts-showing-about-21-million-salaried-jobs-lost-in-apr-aug-6588479/

IMF. (2020). World Economic Outlook Database, October 2020. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/SPROLLS/world-economic-outlook-databases#sort=%40imfdate%20descending

ITUC. (2020). International Trade Union Confederation 2020 Global Poll. International Trade Union Confederation . Retrieved from https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc_globalpoll_2020_en.pdf

ITUC. (2020). The World’s Worst Countries for Workers. International Trade Union Confederation .

Mittal, P. (2019). Impact of Auto-regressive (AR) Process in Bullwhip Analysis in a Multi-location Supply Chain Network. Journal of Business Management and Information Systems, 6(1), 19–26.

Nath, A. S. (2020, May 30). Labour Law Changes: Innocuous Mistakes or Sleight of Hand? Economic Political Weekly.

Pattnaik, P. (2020, October 11). Asymmetric Effects of Growth and Stagnation. Peoples Democracy. Retrieved from https://peoplesdemocracy.in/2020/1011_pd/asymmetric-effects-growth-and-stagnation

UNCTAD. (2020). UNCTAD STAT. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Retrieved from https://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx?sCS_ChosenLang=en

UNDP. (2020). The 2020 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). United Nations Development Program. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/2020-MPI

University, A. P. (2018). State of Working India. Bangalore: Azim Premji University. Retrieved from https://cse.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/state-of-working-india/

Verma, C. P., Bansal, R., & Mittal, P. (2020). Control of COVID-19: A Counter Factual Analysis. Administrative Development, Journal of HIPA, Shimla, 7(1), 1–24.

WB. (2020). Word Development Indicators. The World Bank. Retrieved from https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators#

WEF. (2020). Global Gender Gap 2020. Geneva: World Economic Forum. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality

WID. (2020). World Inequality Database. Retrieved from https://wid.world/data/

Published
2022-09-08
How to Cite
Thakur, N., & Negi, V. (2022). Inequality, Informality, Marginality and Unemployment (IIMU) in Indian Labor Market during Covid-19 Pandemic. VEETHIKA-An International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(3), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.48001/veethika.2022.08.03.001
Section
Articles