The status of Self-employed and Casual Workers in India: Some recent changes due to COVID19

The labour has been the hardest hit by COVID19 in all the countries of the World. While labour is broadly categorised into regular & salaried workers and casual workers in developed countries, we also have a third category of workers in developing countries, i.e., self-employed workers. In India, the share of self-employed in total employment in 2021-22 is more than fifty five percent and another 23 percent are casual workers. The share of regular workers is only 21.5 percent. India, has a lot of workers in the informal sector without any social security. These workers are the most vulnerable in any catastrophe. As a result, these self-employed, and casual workers were and still are the worst sufferers of any catastrophe, e.g. COVID19. They lost their occupations, and jobs due to severe economic lock downs and restrictions. They did not have alternative employment opportunities. Many of these workers who lost their jobs and did not get adequate financial support from the governments were forced for their survival to take up self-employment. Not only the headcount employment fell but workers worked for less number of days per week and also less number of hours per day. Government initiatives were taken but were perhaps not enough. Some more policy initiatives have been recently undertaken in India to increase the formalisation of the economy and provide some social security to the workers through changes in the labour laws.The paper first provides the profile of these workers in India. Then the paper identifies the loss in employment these workers have experienced during COVID19, and gives an overview of the policy initiatives which were taken to help the workers during COVID19. Based on the outcome of the evidence, some policy recommendations have been made to improve the work condition of the workers.