Caste Inequalities in Access to Regular Non-farm Jobs and the Likely Implication of the Industrial Relations Code

In the neo-liberal set-up, deceleration of economic growth and unemployment have emerged as key challenges, obliging the government to pursue reforms to facilitate a suitable environment for boosting up economic growth, attract foreign investment, and create employment opportunities. Amalgamation, simplification, and rationalisation of the industrial relations legislation are some of the key steps in this direction. The Indian labour market has been considered to be rigid on account of the plethora of labour market regulations in place. Streamlining the multitude of labour laws into four broad codes is a welcome step as far as it ensures better implementation of the labour laws in favour of the labour force in India. So in process of the amalgamation of the labour laws, it is important to consider their impact on the social and political construct of the society. The recent amalgamation of the three legislations on industrial relations, namely the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 into the Industrial Relations Code (IRC), 2020 (Gazette of India 2020) has drawn the attention of the law and development experts, along with other concerned civil society stakeholders about its impact on inclusive socio-economic development and reduction of vulnerabilities across the social groups. The objective of this paper is to highlight the state of employment security across caste groups among the non-farm workers in the organised sector. It also attempts to highlight the implications of the IRC on the access to secured jobs among workers from different caste groups. Using the National Sample Surveys of employment and unemployment, the analysis in this paper is drawn broadly for the regular non-farm workers in the organised sector at usual principal and subsidiary status combined (for the ages 18 or above). The absolute number of workers and population has been adjusted with the projected census population for the corresponding years. The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS 2008) definitions of “formal sector” and “formal worker” have been followed for this study.

Informalisation of Jobs as a Phenomenon