Employment, Wages and Poverty in the Organized and the Unorganized Segments of the Non-Agricultural Sector in India; All-India, 2000-2005

Analysing the Unit Record Data from the NSS 55th and 61st Round Employment-Unemployment Surveys, the Organized Sector Workforce in non-agriculture is shown to be larger than the corresponding DGE&T estimates by 16.5 million in 2004-05 and to have increased by 5.4 million between 2000 and 2005 instead of the 1.6 decrease indicated by the corresponding DGE&T estimates. Examining some features of employment contracts of the regular wage/salary workers who account for 88 percent of the organized sector workforce, it is shown that between 14 to 27 million of the 41.5 million workers in organized non-agriculture are perhaps better labeled as Informal Workers who are without access to a set of social security benefits though they are located in the formal sector. Also presented are our estimates of workforce in the unorganized segment of non-agriculture in the country as a whole as also those in urban India who constitute the Urban Informal Sector. An analysis of labour productivity in the organized-unorganized segments of broad industry groups for 1999-2000 and 2004-05 is followed by an examination of differences across the organized-unorganized divide in average daily earnings and in the poverty status of adult workers in non-agricultural activities for 2004-05