Rome: Kerala has ranked low in male employment conditions among 22 states, with only Bihar and Odisha ranking worse, according to a report released by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in collaboration with the Institute of Human Development (IHD).
The India Employment Report 2024 constructed an Index of Employment Conditions, which amalgamates seven key indicators of the labour market for both males and females. It then goes on to rank the Indian states on the basis of these seven indicators.
Illustrated by Manisha Yadav | ThePrint
A breakup of the data showed that Kerala’s seemingly dire employment scenario for males is visible through two main factors — an unemployment rate much higher than the national average among educated males (aged 15-29), and low male youth engagement in employment, education, or training.
The ILO report ranked Kerala 19th out of 22 states in employment of educated males (aged 15-29) with secondary or higher education. As many as 31.28 percent of educated males in Kerala are unemployed compared to 20.28 percent nationally.
The employment condition index takes into account the percentage of workers employed in regular formal work, the worker population ratio, the proportion of casual workers, the proportion of self-employed workers with income below the poverty line, the average monthly earnings of casual workers, the unemployment rate of youths with a secondary or higher level of education, and the youth not in employment, education, or training.
Some of these parameters, like formal work, are considered to impact the index positively. Formal work includes work for government or private enterprises with more than 10 workers and ensures better work conditions and pay than casual work.
Kerala’s high percentage of male casual workers brought down its male employment condition index, but the high wages indicated better quality casual work than in other states.
The low male workforce participation also negatively impacted its male employment condition index. The report did note that low workforce participation, particularly younger male youths, is “primarily driven by their pursuit of education, which can enhance their prospects of achieving better labour market outcomes in the future”.
This, however, was said in the larger Indian context, and not specifically for Kerala. In Kerala, concerns over the low employment rate among educated youths have been raised in the past, with experts attributing it to faulty education, a lack of employable skills, and a preference for white-collar jobs, among other factors.
Kerala’s young males also came at the bottom of 22 states in engagement in employment, education, or training. Around 19.26 percent of young males from Kerala are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). That is, they are not doing anything economically productive.
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‘Gap between aspiration & opportunity’
Kerala has the second-highest unemployment rate among its educated youth population (15-29). Only 38.98 percent of educated youths are employed compared to 21.84 percent nationally. With 39.95 percent unemployed, only Odisha has fared worse.
A January 2023 working paper by the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, attributed high youth unemployment rates to a “mismatch between employment aspirations and opportunities in the labour market”.
“…existing jobs do not match the employment aspirations of youth, and the misalignment between their aspirations and the available employment could be partly responsible for the high unemployment,” it said.
“Higher relative occupational aspirations gap among youth compared to adults indicates that young people who are more educated than their elders aspire for better jobs than the existing ones,” it added.
P.V. Rajeev, a retired Indian Economic Service officer, in a 2018 MarketExpress article, had also blamed it on a “tendency” among industries in Kerala to set up manufacturing in districts bordering the state, like Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, due to high wages in Kerala.
The ILO report ranks Kerala first in the average monthly wage of casual male workers (aged 15+). While the average wage is Rs 14,427 per month in Kerala, it is Rs 14,115 in the second-ranked Delhi. The national average is Rs 9,086.
After Delhi, Kerala also has the second-least self-employed workers with income below the poverty line.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
The solution lies in the sentence:
“Despite highest wages across India”
No body can afford the insane wages and conditions obtaining there. If the wages were lower, there would be more demand. Of course, the youth will have less, but ‘less’ is better thannothing. But people are swayed by their sense of entitlement and demand impossible conditions of the employers. That is why few people are ready to invest in Kerala-