Why Job Creation is slow today?

Economic growth and job creation are the two key challenges (as also opportunities) for the Indian economy. With economic growth, a corresponding pace of job creation should ideally take place. But, “jobless growth” or insufficient growth of employment opportunities is a globally accepted phenomenon today. Why?

Economic growth triggers the ‘world of work’ (involving both human labour and machines), but is not necessarily expected to create “jobs”, in the same way as we know it today. A ‘job’ is a specific activity by a person, under a contract with an employer that entitles him/her for an income. The number of such contracts are not increasing on par with the growth of the economy.

??Why? Because ‘job’ and “work” are conceptually different. A ‘job’ is a specific activity that a person does to earn a living, while ‘work’ is any activity that a person does, whether mental or physical.? ‘Work’ is an activity that serves a purpose, while ‘job’ is a form of work that is done for an organisation. Unpaid work is also considered as ‘work’, and includes caring for family, cleaning, and growing food. All jobs can be considered work, but not all work is a job. 'Work' can be used as a noun or a verb, while 'job' is always a noun. The main difference between a job creator and a work creator is that?the former creates employment opportunities for others, while a work creator is an employee who creates a work or invention.

Job involves two essential components: a) a human relationship involving an employer and employee; and 2) regularity of work. As the economy grows, the latter obviously happens; but formal jobs are rarer. Even many of the erstwhile jobs get substituted. This is quite natural, as the concept of a ‘job’ is evolutionary, and has changed over time.? The industrial revolution, technological advancements, globalization, and changing workforce expectations have all played a role in reshaping the nature of work.

The structure of the ‘world of work’ Is different today. Since jobs are incidental to economic growth, both the regularity of work and employer-employee relationship, as we are familiar with, are no more needed. The concept of "job" is becoming increasingly outdated as more and more people are finding alternative ways to make a living, such as freelance work, remote work, and contract work.? Individuals and organizations must embrace lifelong learning, flexibility, and the cultivation of diverse skill sets to thrive in the evolving job landscape.

?If history is our sign- post, the concept of Job is, and must be, moving from stability to adaptability. In primitive societies, jobs were closely tied to survival. Early humans engaged in hunting, gathering, and basic agriculture to sustain their communities. As societies developed, specialization emerged, and individuals began to focus on specific tasks. Under the domestic system, skilled labour was the driving force of growth. Under factory system, the next stage, unskilled labour was predominant. The driver of the information age is ‘information’;under the Fourth Industrial Revolution,it is digitally driven automation, or digital process automation (DPA).

Jobs are created by organisations, and therefore, they are visible. Work, on the other hand, is created by the production system, and therefore, is rather invisible. Hence, the global economy, in its new phase of evolution, offers several unprecedented types and forms of income opportunities, but much less of the ‘jobs’ we are used to.

Tags: Jobs; work; income opportunities; world of work; ISED Small Enterprise Observatory