Key Insights | India at Work: Employment Trends in the 21st Century

Our novel approach, which focuses on the total number of those employed rather than unemployment rates across different demographic and employment segments, while also disregarding subsidiary employment, allows us to draw definitive conclusions about changing employment patterns. Concentrating on the period from 2017–2018 to 2023–2024, our analysis reveals that: (1) employment has been increasing steadily throughout this period; (2) female employment is rising faster than male employment; (3) there is relative stagnation in cropping sector employment; (4) the non-cropping sector, which includes livestock and higher-value agriculture, accounts for two-thirds of the employment growth; (5) employment growth is higher for those with greater educational attainment, ranging from 0.4% annually for illiterates to 6.1% annually for graduates and above; (6) of the 103 million additional employment during this period, an estimated 46 million are either employers or regular salaried workers; (7) own-account workers accounted for an additional 34 million, and unpaid family work stood at 23 million; however, we find that the bulk of this cannot be identified as distress work; (8) casual work, whether in public works or private, has stagnated throughout this period.