In last 10 years save the 2021 and 2022 Indian medias and social medias and posts are flooding with agonies of job losses including ominous predictions from the financial analysist and about the most insufficient job generation. For tracking the reasons behind this impending catastrophe for a most populous nation we have to trace back the job generation history prior of 1947 and post independence period. In colonial period prior of 1947 Indian job markets both white and blue color first experienced acute crisis in 30s and 40s for world wide recession, second world war and the ruthless colonial exploitations culminated on an unthinkable economic miseries for 98% of people including a severe famine. After gaining freedom our legendary policymakers and political leadership most correctly adopted the Soviet economic model by fast establishing core govt. industries like steel, cement, medicines, tractors etc on the one hand and on the other hand massive dams for nation food security. These most positive steps not only set the impoverished nation on correct path of growth but also generated millions job both in core and non core sectors which for first time ingenerated the globally celebrated great Indian middle class till to date not only through the job generation but also through small and medium businesses as well as in agriculture sector too. However Indian socialist economy faced first job generation contraction in early 70s with rising unemployment both in middle and working classes in the line of contemporary identical contraction in the other socialist block states like USSR, China, Yugoslavia etc due to rising population and saturation of employment in government sectors. However after bank and mining nationalization India did manage successfully partially cope with the said peril till 1995. But from 1996 with the acceleration of private investments particularly in IT and health and construction sectors the job generation crisis was most successfully combated with giving great immunity our national and state governments from the biggest obligation of job generation, the most arduous responsibility for any government. This legacy continued till 2019 although slow growth in employment sector started actually since 2008 post of global recession. However overall domestic and overseas job market went very well till 2022 for our people. But from 2023 overseas economy particularly the USA, Canada and Europe medium scale layoff started particularly in IT and banking sector for troubled economy and rising automation and when these elements started to stream in our domestic economy then it is middle class monolith base started to tremble and these middle classes being the growth engine of national economy also very naturally started to limp in various forms as deliberated me in many previous article and in today the most stark reality is the Indian middle class has fallen in the invincible triangle trap of wage stagnation, high inflation and lay offs threat. Adding to the woes is the heap of debt and EMI due to rising aspiration among the middle class in last 30 years for housing, better education, health care and better lifestyle. Actually Indian middle class is basically tapped between 10% riches who have enough wealth to sustain at least for 10 to 20 years as well as the 60% lower working class getting several feebies from the central and state governments on consideration being constituting the largest vote bank of our political parties. Actually the woes of middle class is deeply felt in the big cities due to highest inflationary pressure and now the virus is percolated to the tire 2 and 3 cities which will landed in the rural India very soon if something miracle in domestic economy does not happen immediately.
Now for correct appreciation of our domestic job generation trajectory in last 40 years both in middle class, lower middle class and lower working class perspective it is apt to understand the meaning of employment. In India like the other third world nations job market is always comprised of employment and semi employment, means a kind of employment sufficient to help one to sustain himself and his family contrary to semi employment having insufficient wage to sustain an individual or his family. In Indian context middle class enjoyed the most of chunk of full employment on wage rate matrix in last 40 years both full in government sector and partially in pvt sector due to blessing of IT and the wage gap in pvt sector is mitigated mostly by other sources of family income particularly like parents govt. pension or family pension or family enterprises etc including the cultivation. On the other hand lower working class is always the natural victims of semi employment which forced their all family members to do jobs for additional income contrary to middle class one or two financial back up apart from higher living standards. Therefore in such manifesting adverse financial landscape middle class sans of government support is the firing line of great economic hardship which has no immediate or even distant relief. That’s why the first most adverse financial slow down of our economy in last quarter has taken tall of real estate, FMGC, cars, manufacturing and electric consumption, pvt. education as the middle class is the primary consumer of these sectors hence. Ofcourse the lower working class is not also in good state being totally dependent upon the percolation of wealth and job generation from the middle class end but not in such direct straight as of middle class at least for time being and is far better of in consumption status. But billion dollar and most rational question is will this lower working class including the marginal farmers survive the storm of inflation, GST, cess impacting them equally along with drying coffers of middle class upon whose income percolation this segment is 70% dependent just like corporate sector and government?
Now another most vital issue for consideration is that the innate construction of Indian economy in comparison with export oriented economy like China, South Korea, Japan and western nations including USA and unlike these economy our economic growth is mostly self propelled on the strength of strong agricultural and small scale manufacturing base since the ancient time and this lesser export dependent trajectory coupled with low consuming lifestyle of majority people of our domestic economy had already shown its strong resilience in past and 70% rural and semi rural based economy is hardly dependent upon exports, foreign remittances and organized job market coupled with strong agricultural base which is our core of resistance power against any recessionary impact. Apart from strong base of service sectors in grass root level to highest echelon like health, medicine, construction, transport, retail and repair maintenance activities will definitely be put an invincible guard wall against any adverse economic scenario in near future. Not only that our middle class although might not be in same level of prosperity as in last 30 years but job generation in secondary market particularly in IT, Health care, pharma, engineering goods, EV, Ethanol and ors agro products will definitely accommodate the displaced job holders and new job seekers for timeless proposition inspite of threat of AI, automation and recession in the primary job market. Therefore our domestic financial picture will not be as dismal as of other nations even with low per capita income.
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