How a labour helpline is assisting informal workers in recovering wages
How a labour helpline is assisting informal workers in recovering wages
He called a landline number he found on the Internet which was received by the labourline set up by Aajeevika Bureau in Rajasthan, which helped him obtain his due wages. “I did not know which state the call was connected to, but it is very useful for workers like me,” says Gupta. “Now I can fearlessly go anywhere to work knowing that I can access support if I face such problems.” Gupta said that…
Rethinking Human Capital: View of informal workers
Concept of human capital captures years of formal education sufficient to measure the skill level of the wage worker. The skill sets required by majority of informal self-employed workers running small business are not captured. Concept needs rethinking.
What does human capital mean from the perspective of the informal sector women workers? An interesting question discussed in a Round Table organized by the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Ahmedabad. A paper titled ‘Rethinking Human Capital: Perspectives from women working in the informal economy’, by Yogesh Ghore, Brad Long and Derin Derici, was presented based on interviews with…
সুখবর! পরিযায়ী শ্রমিকদের জন্যে রেশন চালু হল রাজ্যে|Migrant labours stuck in West Bengal will get ration from now | coronavirus-latest-news
রেশন পাবেন আটকে থাকা পরিযায়ী শ্রমিকরাও। ফাইল চিত্র রাজ্যের দেওয়া রেশন পাবেন এই রাজ্যে এসে আটকে থাকা পরিযায়ী শ্রমিকরাও।
#কলকাতা:পরিযায়ী শ্রমিকদের সংস্থান নিয়ে নানা বিতর্ক চলার মাঝেই তাদের রেশন দেওয়ার কাজ শুরু করল রাজ্য সরকার। শুধু আমাদের রাজ্যে ফেরত আসা পরিযায়ী শ্রমিকরাই নয়। রাজ্যের দেওয়া রেশন পাবেন এই রাজ্যে এসে আটকে থাকা পরিযায়ী শ্রমিকরাও। সব…
A worker is informally employed when she does not have a contract, social security, health insurance or any other protections. Informal work is a means of survival, nothing more. From the rickshaw pullers in the streets of Dhaka to the mobile fruit vendors of Nairobi, the informal economy is omnipresent. Informal employment is more than 70 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and more than 50 percent in Latin America. In Cote d’Ivoire and Nepal, it is more than 90 percent. As you can see in the graph below, which I have borrowed from the draft World Development Report 2019, informal work is more widespread for low income than high income economies.
Most informal workers tend to be engaged in low productivity activities, with little skill development and almost zero growth prospects. In India, a year of work in the formal sector doubles wages compared with a year of informal work. In Kenya the picture is similar. The difference is potent. Informal businesses are the business of the poor. The small scale of their endeavors reduces the chances of moving out of poverty.
You can learn more about how technology helps people stuck in dead-end jobs by reading the draft of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2019.
Of course, the report doesn’t have all the solutions but, in a world with so much uncertainty, what it sets out is a way to think about the challenges ahead. Technology isn’t the only answer to many of the problems we face but by properly framing the right questions now there is a better chance that it will help more than hinder our progress.
