Editorial 1 : Look east
Introduction: Last week, Myanmar’s army claimed success in retaking Myawaddy, a critical node in the bustling trade route with its eastern neighbour, Thailand. The anti-government coalition of the ethnic armed groups and the pro-democracy fighters had created a flutter in the region by entering Myawaddy in mid-April and ousting the troops from the army base there.
The Border Guard Force (BGF) group
- The real winner in the see-saw battle now appears to be the notorious Border Guard Force (BGF) in the region, formally aligned with the military government in Yangon, but with great autonomy on the ground.
- The BGF is reportedly playing both sides in order to expand its own regional dominance.
- It also presides over a massive regional criminal network that operates gambling casinos, drug trade, and illegal trafficking on the Thai border.
- The battle for Myawaddy captures the larger story of the breakdown of the state in Myanmar.
The conflictual journey of Myanmar since its independence
- Since its independence, Myanmar never enjoyed sustained control over all its territory.
- The conflict between the majority Bamars and several ethnic minority groups has left the state’s control over its frontiers shaky.
The post-2021 Coup situation
- The situation has never been as grim as it is today.
- Since the unpopular and ineffective 2021 coup, the army has lost control over much of the troubled nation as the pro-democracy Bamar groups joined hands with the ethnic armed groups to end army rule.
- The country’s frontiers have always drawn trans-border networks of illegal groups.
- That attraction has grown now.
Myanmar’s crisis is attracting external players
- As the threat from the collapsing authority of the Myanmarese state envelops the rest of the region, the intervention of external powers has become acute.
- While the main regional forum ASEAN has been unable to deal with the challenges, the great powers are stepping in.
- In the name of stabilising its frontier with Myanmar, China has inserted itself deeper into the nation’s internal affairs.
- The US supports the country’s pro-democracy movement and has given nearly $500 million assistance under the Burma Act of 2021. Some of this includes non-lethal military support.
India’s strategic silence over Myanmar crisis
- Despite its profound impact on India’s internal and external security, there has been little debate in Delhi on how to deal with the Myanmar crisis.
- The time has come for the Indian government to rethink its earlier policy bias in favour of Myanmar’s army which is no longer in a position to secure India’s interests.
- Delhi must now begin a dialogue with Myanmar’s National Unity Government comprising the democratic opposition and the ethnic armed groups.
- While it should engage with the Army, of course, New Delhi must also open channels of communication with the local forces in control of the regions across the 1,600-km long land border with Myanmar.
Conclusion: The Myanmar crisis has brought great power play on India’s neighbourhood. India needs to have a clear policy on Myanmar. Playing defence by fencing the border with Myanmar is utterly inadequate in coping with the challenge on India’s eastern frontier.
Editorial 2 : Jobs picture in perspective
Introduction: The India Employment Report 2024, brought out by the Institute for Human Development (IHD) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has attracted widespread attention. However, some of its findings have been misunderstood or misinterpreted.
On which data does the report rely?
- The report is based on official data, largely the Employment and Unemployment Surveys (EUS) and Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS), conducted by NSSO.
- Despite certain changes in the sample design of the PLFS, its estimates are comparable with EUS due to the high level of precision of the all-India and state-level estimates.
- The analysis compares four years — 2000, 2012, 2019, and 2022 — which capture the changes over the past 22 years, including during the Covid period.
Highlights of the Report
Positive highlights
1. Improvement in employment condition
- The employment quality, as shown by a robust Employment Condition Index, has improved in all states, albeit differently.
- This is also corroborated by the increase in the share of non-farm employment (and decline in agriculture employment) between 2000 and 2019, as happens with the increasing prosperity of a country, and implies a movement towards the structural transformation of the economy.
- This trend was accompanied by a steady increase in regular employment and a decline in unorganised sector employment, which was halted only during the Covid period.
2. Rise in female workforce participation (FWFP) rate
- The increase in the female workforce participation (FWFP) rate from 24.5 per cent in 2019 to 37.0 in 2023 is quite remarkable, notwithstanding it being overwhelmingly in the agricultural sector, and of the own-account and unpaid family work kind.
3. Growth in real wages
- The labour market bounced back quite well amidst the Covid-induced global slowdown.
- In comparison to the wages of regular workers, the wages of casual workers increased even during 2019-22.
- In fact, the increase was more in the case of the bottom groups.
- Along with several social safety measures, this must have played an important role in reducing extreme poverty and deprivation.
- It is also worth mentioning that even though there was a massive increase in farm jobs during the pandemic (almost 9 per cent per year), overall non-farm jobs also went up by more than 2.6 per cent, a rate higher than that achieved from 2012 to 2019.
4. Decline in unemployment and underemployment
- Unemployment and underemployment rates increased till 2018 but declined thereafter.
- The unemployment rate has declined from 6 per cent 2018 to 3.2 per cent in 2023.
- This also holds for the youth unemployment rate, which also decreased from 17.8 per cent to 10 per cent over this period.
Negative highlights
1. Meagre growth in labour-intensive manufacturing sector
- The employment pattern remains skewed towards agriculture, which employs around 46.6 per cent workers (compared to 42.4 per cent in 2019).
- This calls for active steps to accelerate the creation of non-farm employment.
- The production process has been increasingly becoming capital and skill-intensive, leading to distortions in the labour market, where despite an increase in educational attainments, unskilled and semi-skilled workers abound.
- This calls for a greater focus on labour-intensive manufacturing.
2. Women participation is low compared to the global average
- Women’s participation is still low and they remain largely engaged in somewhat less remunerative jobs in agriculture, unpaid family work and as own-account workers.
- This requires the creation of other non-farm employment opportunities with further investments in rural areas, including transport and connectivity and access to childcare.
3. The paradox of more unemployment in educated youth
- With the massive increase in educational attainment, the unemployment problem in India is becoming centred around educated youth, who account for nearly two-thirds of total unemployment.
- This process has been continuing for the last several decades.
- The unemployment rate rises with a rise in education levels — 28 per cent among graduates and above (the proportion of women being higher).
- This has declined from 35.4 per cent in 2018.
- The report notes the qualifications and skills mismatches, particularly at higher levels of education.
- Improving the quality of education and imparting appropriate skills in active partnership with the private sector will continue to be a priority in coming years.
- Paradoxically, the proportion of youth not in employment, education and training (NEET) is quite high at around 28 per cent in 2022, with the share of females being around five times more than males. This group requires more policy focus.
3. Informal and low-productive jobs
- Despite an improvement in employment conditions over time, jobs largely remain informal and of lower productivity.
- Over 90 per cent employment is informal, and 83 per cent are in the informal sector — it was close to 90 per cent in 2000.
- Robust wage growth, particularly of casual and lower strata of regular workers, strengthening of social protection, active policies for formalisation and boosting labour productivity will go a long way in improving the quality of employment.
Recommendation to improve job scenario in India
The report has recommended some policy measures such as-
- making production and growth more employment-intensive with emphasis on labour-based manufacturing and appropriate focus on employment-generating services and agriculture
- improving the quality of jobs
- overcoming labour market inequalities, particularly by boosting women’s employment and effective policies to tackle NEET
- making systems for skills training and active labour market policies more effective, particularly by bridging the supply-demand gap in jobs and active involvement of the private sector
- generating reliable statistics so as to better capture the complexities of the changing pattern of labour market due to rapid technological change.
Conclusion: India is likely to have a demographic advantage for at least another decade. With robust economic growth likely to be witnessed in the coming years, the country can reap this advantage.