SOIL Report 2011 - ACCESS Development Services

Private Industry andServices—What Is‘India Inc’ Delivering inEmployment to the Poor?5.1. Introduction andsummaryIndia is in the throws of its own growth story.Infrastructure and realty developments hitus anew every day; prices and wages increaseby the month; new rugged crowds flockin to products and services which used tobe for elites; workers no longer show forwork because they’re busy on their owngrowth trajectories. The changes are soconspicuous that it is easy to imagine theyreach India’s working heart: its villages offarmers and migrant workers, and its lowwageurban settlements. And yet, thestory from the heartland—from statisticsand small qualitative studies as we saw inChapter 2—reminds us that the choices formost are as limited and as tough as ever.This chapter addresses the topic ofjobs for India’s poor inside private-sectorindustry, services and their supply chains.The private sector’s role in the livelihoodsof the poor is of course not limited to oneof an employer. Business and industry isforemost a purchaser and processor ofprimary sector goods from India’s farmers.The private sector also helps to generatelivelihoods in trade and logistics when itsgoods and services are channelled to the‘bottom of the pyramid’. But it is in its roleof employer that the private sector has thedeepest impact; first because such jobs aretypically full-time, and second, because thepoorest are most easily included in growththrough the employment route, since theytypically lack capital to trade or land to produceon a scale beyond subsistence.While a previous SOIL Report looked atthe role of corporate farms and handicraftsupply chains in supporting poor people’slivelihoods (Datta and Sharma 2008), thisyear, we focus on employment, to match themood, towards better jobs, in the governmentand the press.Section 5.2 examines the evidence thatwe are witnessing an upward trend in thecreation of quality jobs in India. Section 5.3takes a detailed look at those sectors andprofessions which appear to offer the besthope for growth in employment for lessskilled groups, and discusses future projections.Section 5.4 discusses the regulatoryclimate for hiring, and the arguments forliberalizing the labour law to lower thebar for the organized sector. Section 5.5looks at the prospects for quality jobs inhigh-growth sectors, and discusses in detailwhat is demanded by the employers of ourless skilled youth entering the job market.Section 5.6 closes with some illustrations ofhow employers can themselves improve the‘job offer’ to better attract the attentive andcommitted workforce they need.5.2. An end to joblessgrowth?According to the business press, the Ministryof Finance and a range of corporate-gearedsurveys, this year’s outlook for growth andChapter5