Persistent Vulnerabilities in the World of Work and Contemporary Capitalism: Some Reflections on India

The onslaught of COVID-19 has been catastrophic for India’s world of work. While it was a bolt out of the blue, its impacts on employment need to be located in the context of a long-term and ongoing structural crisis of (un) employment and systemic vulnerabilities (and subsequent burgeoning of ‘labour reserves’) that have tended to worsen during the neo-liberal regime. Using the various EUS and subsequent PLFS rounds for roughly the last two decades, the paper seeks to highlight selected aspects of the vulnerabilities and inequities that have plagued India’s world of work. These include participation rates, vulnerable employment, composition of workforce and access to certain aspects of decent work such as social security, paid leaves, and written contract. An important issue that the paper investigates is ‘income-vulnerability’ of the employed at the present juncture. Further, inequities across gender and social groups have also been assessed as regards these variables using the most recent data.