Tamil Nadu suffers from maximal casualisation of workforce: Study

Chennai: Frank and informal chats lighten the burden of work, more so at construction projects. It is despite Tamil Nadu “seen as a state that has been able to combine high levels of economic growth with high levels of social development in recent years.” Just sample these macro-trends that show up apparently contradictory trends: About 92 per cent of farmers in Tamil Nadu belong to marginal and small farmers category. Again within agriculture, the “the bulk of the growth in the last decade has emanated from fisheries, livestock, horticulture and floriculture.” While the total workforce in Tamil Nadu has gone up to 32.88 million, from 20.20 million in 1991, nearly five million of them is accounted for by “marginal workforce”, says the report, adding, “it does not augur well for a fast-growing economy.” Over the last decade, the number of cultivators have declined by 0.86 million even if number of agriculture workforce is up by 0.94 million. Nonetheless, the study finds that the profile of the organised sector workforce in Tamil Nadu, does not show a greater absorption by the manufacturing sector with corresponding rise in “regular wage/salaried employment”. “Casualisation of workforce in Tamil Nadu has increased; decline in the share of manufacturing employment, accompanied by lower productivity clearly demands policy attention,” says the latest HDR-2017.