The International Labor Organization (ILO) has recently released two reports: ‘Global Wages Report 2022-2023’ and ‘Asia-Pacific Employment and Social Outlook 2022, highlighting the global employment scenario (post-pandemic).
What do these figures show?
(1) Trend in nominal wages: Nominal wages have increased to Rs 17,017 per month in 2021 from Rs 4,398 in 2006. The source referenced was the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.
(2) Factoring in Inflation: Real wage growth in India has fallen from 9.3% in 2006 to -0.2% in 2021.
(3) Impact on low earners: The worst impact was on low income people as they have to spend most of their disposable income on essential goods and services.
Is inequality increasing?
(1) At the Asia-Pacific level: Only high-skill occupations saw a recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, and this is the case across all sub-regions.
(2) Impact on low-to-middle-skill jobs: There is an employment gain of 1.6% among high-skilled workers between 2019 and 2021, but no such significant gain among low- to middle-skill workers Is.
(3) Among G-20 countries: A significant gap is observed in the average level of real wages between advanced G-20 countries and emerging G-20 countries like India. is at the $1,800 per month level.
Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM) of the International Labor Organisation:
The 17th APRM of the International Labor Organization is being held in Singapore. It comes at a turning point for the world of work as the sector faces a number of challenges, including the continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the global food, energy and finance crisis. It brought together representatives of governments, employers and labor organizations from Asia, the Pacific and Arab states.
Under the Constitution of India, labor is a subject in the Concurrent List and therefore, both the Central and State Governments are competent to legislate subject to certain matters reserved for the Centre.
Several legislative and administrative initiatives have been taken by the government to improve working conditions and simplify labor laws. The most recent being the consolidated set of 4 labor codes which are yet to be implemented.
Indian Parliament enacted 4 Labor Codes: Industrial Relations Code, 2020; Social Security Code, 2020; Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, 2020; and The Code on Wages, 2020.
The objective of these codes is to consolidate and simplify the existing and overlapping labor laws of the country by merging 29 already existing labor laws into 4. Since labor is a concurrent subject, states should develop their own rules and only then the codes can be fully implemented.
-OJAANK SHUKLA
( DIRECTOR – OJAANK IAS )