Page 698 - ES 2020-21_Volume-1-2 [28-01-21]

10

Social Infrastructure, Employment

and Human Development CHAPTER

Year 2020 began with the once-in-a-century pandemic, which saw the frontline health
workers working tirelessly to save human lives from COVID-19. While the pandemic
caused its ripples on the economy and on the social sector, Governments at the Centre
and States intervened in a timely manner to respond to the pandemic. India has one
of the lowest case fatality rates of less than 1.5 per cent. Also, as shown in Chapter 1
Volume I of the Economic Survey, India has been able to save lakhs of lives through
its effective policy response. Public spending on social sector was increased in 2020-21
to mitigate the hardships caused by the pandemic and the loss to livelihood due to the
lockdown.

During the lockdown, online schooling took off in a big way and the Government
introduced several measures to make online education accessible to all children. Similarly
the lockdown period also saw the growth of the gig economy and increasing work from
home in the organized sector. As per the PLFS report 2018-19, there was an increase
in workforce totalling 48.78 crore during 2018-19 as compared to 47.14 crore during
2017- 18. The size of the workforce increased by about 1.64 crore, of which 1.22 crore
were in rural sector and 0.42 crore in urban sector. The gender composition was 0.92
crore females and 0.72 crore males. Number of unemployed persons declined by about
0.79 crore between 2017-18 and 2018-19, largely in the category of females, and in rural
sector. The females labour force participation rate increased from 17.5 per cent in 2017-
18 to 18.6 per cent in 2018-19. These facts reveal that 2018-19 was a good year for
employment generation. The net payroll data of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation
(EPFO) as on 20th December, 2020 shows a net increase of new subscribers in EPFO of
78.58 lakhs in 2019-20 as compared to 61.1 lakhs in 2018-19.The quarterly PLFS, which
covers the urban areas, shows improvements in the employment situation in Q4-2020
when compared to Q4-2019. Considering the proportion of the male workforce (15 years
& above) by status of employment, casual labour decreased by 1 percentage points while
self-employed and salaried workers increased by 0.6 percentage points and 0.4 percentage
points, respectively. Similarly, in case of the female workforce (15 years & above), self-
employed increased by 2 percentage points, regular/wage salaried workers decreased by
0.7 percentage points and casual labour decreased by 1.4 percentage points. The Time
Use Survey, 2019 reported that females spend relatively more time in unpaid domestic and
care giving activities (7.5 hours) as compared to employment related activities (5.7 hours)
per day. This is reported to be one of the main reasons for the low female participation in