Budget 2024: India needs to create 78 lakh non-farms jobs each year until 2030

The Indian economy needs to generate an average of nearly 78.51 lakh jobs annually until 2030 in the non-farm sector to cater to the rising workforce, according to the Economic Survey 2023-24.

However, to create these many jobs, there is a need to create the conditions for faster growth of productive jobs outside of agriculture, especially in organised manufacturing and services, even while improving productivity in agriculture, the survey released a day ahead of the Budget says.

To meet the demand of 78.5 lakh jobs in non-farm sector per year, there is scope to supplement the existing schemes of production-linked incentives PLI (60 lakh employment generation over 5 years), MITRA Textile scheme (20 lakh employment generation), MUDRA, etc., while boosting their implementation, it says.

The rising employment of flexi workers through staffing companies can be a channel for ensuring social security for informal workers, the Economic Survey notes. There are 5.4 million formal contract staff or flexi workers in India employed through organised contract staffing companies. These staffing companies are responsible for the timely payout of salaries, wages, social security, medical insurance towards their contract staff.

“Although they work on a contract, these workers are fully protected with social security, and the average length of contract has been rising with more than 75% of the contracts in 2023 for over six months. The flexi workforce has grown at a CAGR of 13.2% in the decade ending 2023, and remained positive even during the COVID pandemic. However, as a share of the total workforce, the contract staffing workforce is about 1% only, compared to 2.2% in Europe and Asia Pacific. The low percentage of flexi jobs in India indicates that the corporate sector has not replaced full-time workers with flexi workers,” it says.

80% of the flexi workers are in the 21-30 age group, with an average salary of ₹20,000- 22,000 a month. Most contract jobs in India continue to happen at the lower end of the skill spectrum such as data operations, accounts, sales, back-end operations, administration and marketing. Nearly 60% of the flexi jobs are in logistics, infrastructure, construction & energy, BFSI, IT and IT-enabled services.

As per the Economic Survey, 65% of India’s fast-growing population is under 35, and many lack the skills needed by a modern economy.

India’s workforce is estimated to be nearly 56.5 crore, of which more than 45% are employed in agriculture, 11.4% in manufacturing, 28.9% in services, and 13% in construction. While the services sector remains a major job creator, the construction sector has been rising in prominence lately, driven by the government’s push for infrastructure.

In India, the rise of the gig economy is driven by the emergence of tech-enabled platforms, an increase in access to the internet backed by the development of digital public infrastructure, the demand for flexible work arrangements, and the focus on skills. According to NITI Aayog’s indicative estimates based on national labour force survey data, in 2020-21, 77 lakh (7.7 million) workers were engaged in the gig economy. They constituted 2.6% of the non-agricultural workforce or 1.5% of the total workforce in India. The gig workforce is expected to expand to 2.35 crore by 2029-30.