IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdc/wpaper/392.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Value Addition, Jobs and Skills: A Study of India's Exports

Author

Listed:
  • Deb Kusum Das

    (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER))

  • Prateek Kukreja

    (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER))

Abstract

Exports serve as an engine of economic growth and can potentially help countries come out of poverty and unemployment. However, as the production process is increasingly getting fragmented globally, greater exports no longer imply higher domestic production, as imports of intermediate products used as inputs in exports also increase. Global Value Chains (GVCs) have now become a defining feature of trade in goods and services globally. Economic Survey 2019-20 also highlighted the importance of GVCs in India's exports, by devoting an entire chapter, suggesting ways to integrate Indian firms into GVCs. With the advent of GVCs, the official trade data does not go very far in explaining the job creating aspect of exports. Further, technological changes are creating new occupations and jobs as the demand for workers with requisite skills is rising. At the same time, some existing jobs may be altered, reduced or eliminated. Therefore, besides assessing the extent of employment supported by India's exports, it is also important to understand the skill composition of such jobs. In this regard, the present study looks at the trends in domestic and foreign value-added share, and employment and skill-composition of jobs supported by India's exports between 2003-04 and 2013-14 using an Input-Output (I-O) table framework. The analysis highlights several interesting patterns. First, import content in exports has steadily increased from 15.9 per cent in 2003-04 to 27.2 per cent in 2013-14. Secondly, export related jobs grew at a much faster rate than overall employment during the period. Thirdly, a chunk of these jobs has gone to persons with below secondary education. While the rate of growth for these low skilled jobs has declined, we observe a sharp rise in the rate of growth of high skilled jobs supported by exports. Lastly, there is also a huge inter-sector disparity in the skill composition of jobs supported by exports, with agricultural exports supporting majorly unskilled and low-skilled jobs, whereas exports of services supporting mostly high skilled ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Deb Kusum Das & Prateek Kukreja, 2020. "Value Addition, Jobs and Skills: A Study of India's Exports," Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) Working Paper 392, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, India.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdc:wpaper:392
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://icrier.org/pdf/Working_Paper_392.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sousa, N. & Rueda-Cantuche, J. M. & Arto, I. & Andreoni, V., 2012. "Extra - EU exports and employment," DG TRADE Chief Economist Notes 2012-2, Directorate General for Trade, European Commission.
    2. Seethamma Natarajan Rajesh Raj & Kunal Sen, 2012. "Did International Trade Destroy or Create Jobs in Indian Manufacturing?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 24(3), pages 359-381, July.
    3. Deb Kusum Das, 2016. "Trade Policy and Manufacturing Performance: Exploring the Level of Trade Openness in India’s Organized Manufacturing in the Period 1990-2010," Working Papers id:9073, eSocialSciences.
    4. Vashisht, Pankaj, 2016. "Creating manufacturing jobs in India: Has openness to trade really helped?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 53-64.
    5. Kunal Sen, 2008. "International Trade and Manufacturing Employment Outcomes in India: A Comparative Study," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-87, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Rajesh Raj S.N. & Subash Sasidharan, 2015. "Impact of Foreign Trade on Employment and Wages in Indian Manufacturing," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 16(2), pages 209-232, September.
    7. Kanhaiya Singh & M.R. Saluja, 2018. "Input–Output Table for India 2013–2014: Based on the New Series of National Accounts Statistics and Supply and the Use Table," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 12(2), pages 197-223, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sanjeev Kumar & Falguni Pattanaik & Ajay K. Singh, 2021. "Modeling Trade–Employment Elasticity Nexus: Evidence from India," Emerging Economy Studies, International Management Institute, vol. 7(1), pages 62-75, May.
    2. Hlalefang Khobai & Clement Moyo, 2021. "Trade openness and industry performance in SADC countries: is the manufacturing sector different?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 105-126, February.
    3. Aaheli Ahmed & Debashis Chakraborty & Sakshi Aggarwal, 2024. "Trade Liberalization and Labour Market Dynamics: Evidence from India," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 22(4), pages 851-881, December.
    4. Boker Poumie & Herve Kaffo Fotio & Guy P. Dazoue Dongue, 2022. "The employment effects of intra‐African exports," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(4), pages 541-555, December.
    5. Basanta K Pradhan & Chetana Chaudhuri & M. R. Saluja, 2020. "Constructing an Input-Output Table for Odisha for 2013-14," IEG Working Papers 396, Institute of Economic Growth.
    6. Singh, Lakhwinder & Shergill, Baldev Singh, 2009. "Technological Capability, Employment Growth and Industrial Development: A Quantitative Anatomy of Indian Scenario," MPRA Paper 19059, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Santosh Kumar Sahu & Ankita Goel, 2023. "Wages and Firm Ownership: A Study of the Manufacturing Sector of India," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 11(2), pages 157-183, August.
    8. Tandon, Anjali, 2022. "Employment implications of India’s international trade – A macro view based on Input-Output analysis," MPRA Paper 112778, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Ira N. Gang & Rajesh Raj Natarajan & Kunal Sen & Myeong-Su Yun, 2021. "The gender productivity gap: Evidence from the Indian informal sector," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-183, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. David KUCERA & Leanne RONCOLATO, 2011. "Trade liberalization, employment and inequality in India and South Africa," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 150(1-2), pages 1-41, June.
    11. Sam Olofin & Olusanya Olubusoye & Afees A. Salisu & Alarudeen Aminu & Uwatt B. Uwatt & Micheal A. Adebiyi, 2017. "Revision of the small macro-econometric model of the Nigerian economy," Working Papers 032, Centre for Econometric and Allied Research, University of Ibadan.
    12. Chandrima Sikdar & Biswajit Nag, 2018. "Foreign Trade and Employment Growth in Manufacturing Sector– Implication of Indian ASEAN FTA," Working Papers 1835, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.
    13. Li,Yue - ETICI & Sinha Roy,Sutirtha, 2020. "The Employment Effect of Place-Based Policies : Evidence from India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9477, The World Bank.
    14. Rueda-Cantuche , José M. & Sousa, Nuno, 2016. "Eu Exports To The World: Overview Of Effects On Employment And Income," DG TRADE Chief Economist Notes 2016-1, Directorate General for Trade, European Commission.
    15. Kanika Pathania & Aditya Bhattacharjea, 2020. "Inverted Duty Structures and the Paradox of Negative Effective Protection in India, 2000–2014," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 55(2), pages 139-167, May.
    16. Marco Di Cintio & Sucharita Ghosh & Emanuele Grassi, 2016. "Firm Employment Growth, R&D Expenditures and Exports," Working Papers 2016.44, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    17. Vashisht, Pankaj, 2016. "Creating manufacturing jobs in India: Has openness to trade really helped?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 53-64.
    18. Habanabakize Thomas & Muzindutsi Paul-Francois, 2018. "Analysis of the Keynesian Theory of Employment and Sectoral Job Creation: The Case of the South African Manufacturing Sector," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 18(1), pages 123-143, June.
    19. Sakshi Aggarwal & Debashis Chakraborty, 2020. "Labour Market Adjustment and Intra-Industry Trade: Empirical Results from Indian Manufacturing Sectors," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 15(2), pages 238-269, August.
    20. Peng Bin & Xiaolan Chen & Andrea Fracasso & Chiara Tomasi, 2020. "Firm employment growth in China: The role of marketization and regional economic factors," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 402-439, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdc:wpaper:392. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chhaya Singh (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.icrier.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.