Economics · Ch 12 — Employment: Growth, Informalisation and Other Issues
Employment in Firms, Factories and Offices
Employment in Firms, Factories and Offices
The shift of labour across sectors
As a country develops, labour flows from agriculture and other related activities into industry and services, and workers migrate from rural to urban areas. Eventually, at a much later stage, even the industrial sector begins to lose its share of total employment as the service sector enters a period of rapid expansion. This shift can be understood by looking at the distribution of workers by industry.
Drawn by us to help you understand the concept clearly, and verified to make sure it's accurate. For exams, practice from your textbook's own diagram.
Own-drawn recreation of NCERT Fig 6.3 (book p.99) — n …
Eight divisions, grouped into three sectors
Economic activity is generally divided into eight industrial divisions — (i) Agriculture, (ii) Mining and Quarrying, (iii) Manufacturing, (iv) Electricity, Gas and Water Supply, (v) Construction, (vi) Trade, (vii) Transport and Storage, and (viii) Services. For simplicity these are clubbed into three major sectors: the primary sector (divisions i and ii), the secondary sector (divisions iii, iv and v), and the service sector (divisions vi, vii and viii).
| Industrial Category | Rural | Urban | Men | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Sector | 59.8 | 6.6 | 40.7 | 57.1 | 44.6 |
| Secondary Sector | 20.4 | 34.3 | 26.5 | 17.7 | 24.4 |
| Tertiary / Service Sector | 19.8 | 59.1 | 32.8 | 25.2 | 31.0 |
What the table shows
The primary sector remains the main source of employment for the majority of India's workers (about 44.6 per cent overall, per the table). The secondary sector provides employment to only about 24 per cent of the workforce, and about 31 per cent of workers are in the service sector. About 60 per cent of the workforce in rural India depends on agriculture, forestry and fishing; about 20 per cent of rural workers are in manufacturing, construction and other industrial activity; and the service sector provides employment to about 20 per cent of rural workers. Agriculture is not a major source of employment in urban areas, where people are mainly engaged in the service sector — about 60 per cent of urban workers are in services, and the secondary sector gives employment to about one-third of the urban workforce.
Though both men and women workers are concentrated in the primary sector, women's concentration there is very high — about 57 per cent of the female workforce is employed in the primary sector, while less than half of male workers are. Men find more opportunities in both the secondary and service sectors.
Work This Out
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