'The 20 to 24 age group accounted for 35% of
job losses till July.'
'The 25 to 29 age bracket account for 46% of all job
losses,' reveals Mahesh Vyas.
Illustration: Dominic Xavier
COVID-19 is known to be
particularly dangerous for the elderly who may have comorbidities.
It is also known to be equally dangerous for very small
children.
Young adults are less likely
to be infected by the disease so as to lead to a fatal outcome.
Most youngsters remain
asymptomatic through a possible infection and the event is often no different
from a common flu.
But the lockdown, which is a
consequence of the highly contagious nature of this disease, is particularly
harmful to youngsters.
While youngsters who are
ready to start working may escape the overwhelmingly debilitating effects of
the disease, they are suffering an equally crippling experience on their career
and their future.
The disease and its companion, the lockdown, together
have hobbled, if not paralysed, the entire age spectrum from being gainfully
employed.
It is conventional to count
employment only for people of 15 years or more.
The upper bound has been
shifting progressively higher over time.
We believe that in a modern
society, a lower bound is sensible.
Children are expected to be
in school. But, there should be no upper bound on employment. We, therefore,
measure all labour statistics for people of 15 years or more with no upper
bound.
In India, people in the age
bracket of 15 to 19 account for less than 1.5 per cent of all employed persons.
This low proportion is a
good sign because these youngsters should be in school or college.
The next five years, 20 to
24, account for a substantial 8.5 per cent of all persons employed.
This ratio has been falling.
It was 9.1 per cent in 2017-2018 before it fell to 8.6 per cent in 2018-2019,
and then 8.5 per cent in 2019-2020.
This could also be a healthy
sign of greater enrollment for higher education.
Thereafter, all five-year
age brackets, from 25 years and above, contain between 11 and 15 per cent of
the employed labour force.
There is a slightly higher
concentration among people in their forties.
Their share in the employed
is 14 to 15 per cent. The rest account for 11 to 12 per cent.
A somewhat worrisome finding
from CMIE's Consumer Pyramids Household Survey is that the share of people in
their late 20s and in their 30s is also declining in the total employed labour
force.
This fall was particularly
sharp in 2019-2020.
Their collective share fell
from a little over 36 per cent in 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 to 34 per cent in
2019-20.
The past few years have been
very difficult on the economy and, therefore, on labour.
The adverse impact of the
slowdown seems to have been disproportionately high on youngsters.
The lockdown has had a
similar impact.
The 20 to 24 age group,
which accounts for less than 9 per cent of total employment, accounted for 35
per cent of the job losses till July 2020.
Those in the 25 to 29 age
bracket account for 11 per cent of all jobs, but 46 per cent of all job losses.
Cumulatively, between April
and July 2020, 11 million jobs were lost compared to the average employment in
2019-2020.
But job losses in the
workforce aged less than 40 were much higher, at 19.6 million.
Three factors seem to be
working against younger workers.
First, a slowing economy
generates lower demand for labour.
Enterprises are expanding
lesser than earlier and, therefore, are generating lesser demand for additional
labour.
Additional demand for labour
is usually met by youngsters who join the labour force.
But, with the slowdown, the
demand for this young new labour force has shrunk.
As a result, slowly, the age
profile of the workforce is shifting towards the relatively older workers.
Second, the younger
workforce in an enterprise is less experienced and, therefore, is more easily
dispensable.
In the initial years,
enterprises invest in fresh labour to make them useful.
In difficult times, they are
less willing to make such an investment.
As a result, the axe falls
more quickly on youngsters.
Third, during the lockdown,
enterprises cannot hire and train new recruits easily.
This is a new constraint.
But this is a very serious
constraint since it is now quite prolonged.
An ageing workforce in a
young population is weird. It has implications on future generations.
Source: Rediff
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