Unemployment rate reduction envisaged
The 11th Five Year Plan envisages lowering of the unemployment rate to below 5 per cent and seeks to add 58 million jobs by 2012 as the projected increase in labour force during the Plan period is 45 million. According to the Economic Survey, about 47 million jobs were created in 1999-2000 and 2004-05 with an annual average of 9.4 million. The organised sector employment increased from 54.12 million in 1999-2000 to 62.57 million in 2004-05. "The increase has been accounted for by an increase in unorganised workers in organised enterprises from 20.46 million in 1999-2000 to 29.14 million in 2004-05,' it said. However, the survey says that there was a decline in the organised sector employment growth in 1994-2005. This primarily happened due to a decline in employment in the public organised sector. Employment in establishments covered by the Employment Market Information System grew at 1.20 per cent per annum in 1983-94 but recorded a negative growth in 1994-2004. Agriculture The share of agriculture in total employment dropped from 61 per cent to 57 per cent between 1993-94 and 1999-2000. It further fell to 52 per cent in 2004-05. Industry also seems to be witnessing improved relations with workers as the number of strikes and lockout dropped by a whopping 34 per cent in 2007, even as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu continued to top the labour issues chart. The number of strikes and lockouts taken together was down by 33.72 per cent in 2007 as compared to 2006, based on provisional data. In 2007, the total number of strikes and lockouts stood at 285, amounting to a loss of 5.64 million mandays. In 2006, these figures were 430 and 20.32 million respectively. The number of strikes in 2007 was 143, accounting for a loss of 2.20 million mandays, while 143 lockouts resulted in 3.43 million lost mandays. Till November 2007, West Bengal had the maximum number of strikes, followed by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.