Basavaraj, a cab driver in Bangalore, used to work on the electrical maintenance team at a business park for a few years before a family circumstance forced him to take over the app-based taxi from his brother to keep the car바카라s EMIs going. Earnings from driving radio cabs are not what they were three years ago but Basavaraj reckons he won바카라t go back to the job he had trained for. From his village alone near Bagalkot, around 500 kms to the north, there are about 10 people driving cabs here, he says.
Bangalore, naturally, attracts job-seekers from the less-developed northern region of Karnataka besides migrants from other states. Over the decades, the city바카라s employment scenario too has transformed. For instance, small-scale manufacturing바카라which once thrived on orders from public sector units and provided employment to an unskilled/semi-skilled first generation workforce바카라has shrunk over the past few decades. Then, there바카라s a growing gig economy. The trend in the tech-hub over the past decade or so, says Supriya Roychowdhury, professor at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), is that the unskilled and semi-skilled labour force is going into the lower rungs of the services sector which is irregular and contract-based. Security services, for instance. 바카라The diversity is very glaring. You can be earning as much as Rs 12-18,000 with PF and uniforms if you are working via an agency for a large company, or earning as low as Rs 4,000-5,000 with nothing else if you are a security person in a small apartment complex in a middle-to-low range neighbourhood,바카라 she says.
Roychowdhury, in collaboration with National Institute of Advanced Studies, is currently working on a project on skills and livelihood, especially looking at the 3-4 month free training courses offered by various agencies. 바카라Urban youth, mostly found in slums or economically weaker sections, are completely disinterested in these kinds of skill training centres because they are aware of the kind of employment that they are likely to find at the end of the training, which is unregulated, low pay, no security of employment, long hours of work and so on,바카라 she says. Many, she says, prefer working as delivery boys for app-based services even though incomes may be low. 바카라They qualify for it because they often have a two wheeler which is one of the most commonly-owned assets,바카라 she says. 바카라They control their own work and it gives them a kind of window into an upper class life which they normally wouldn바카라t have if they were working in a factory or elsewhere,바카라 she says.
Karnataka is well below the Indian average on unemployment but there have been campaigns for better jobs and job security, especially in the run-up to state elections in 2018. 바카라It was much more from contract workers and people who already had jobs, but of a precarious kind,바카라 says Amit Basole of Azim Premji University whose report 바카라State of Working India 2018바카라, published last September, noted that India바카라s higher GDP growth over the last decade has raised aspirations but has failed to generate the kind of jobs that will allow people to fulfill those aspirations. 바카라Under-employment is a huge problem even in Bangalore,바카라 says Vinay Sreenivasa of Alternative Law Forum, who works with the street vendors union. He cites the example of some youngsters from the districts taking up street vending even though they were graduates. 바카라Of course, it바카라s a dignified job. But they didn바카라t go to college thinking they would sell food on the street.바카라
Bangalore바카라s garment industry, researchers say, has largely bucked the trend in manufacturing. There are around four lakh workers employed in the formal sector바카라among Indian states, Karnataka has the highest number of factory employees in the garment industry and Bangalore has the largest concentration of these factories. But attrition levels have always been high, notes Roychowdhury. 바카라Many leave because they can바카라t withstand the pressure. So there is always a complaint from employers about labour shortage.바카라
Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore
