Look at ‘unskilled’ as ‘differently skilled’

By Srinath Sridharan

In the past few decades, India had been more a labour-cost-arbitrage economy, rather than a knowledge-arbitrage-one. Over 62% of India’s population is between the productive ages of 15-59 years. The median age of our population is less than 30 years of age, and for next over two decades we will hold onto the claim of being one of the younger demographics in the world. India, with a population over 135 crore (around 17% of world population), has the demographic ‘dividend versus divide’ conundrum. The larger question is how to provide our productive age demographic with the means of livelihood. Yet there are jobs whose core functions and requirements have not even incrementally changed for decades!

It is a common sight in Mumbai and many urban centres to observe a large number of labourers gather at select spots for their contractor to come and pick a few of those hundreds waiting for that day’s job at construction sites. It is a daily rigmarole, with no guarantee of being selected for earning-for-the-day. This daily pain is typical of millions of Indians who form more than 90% of the country’s unskilled and semi-skilled workforce. Most of them have little or no formal training.

Much of our workforce has outdated and/or irrelevant skills; be it in blue-collared job or white-collared job or the informal labour market. A glance at the Indian IT jobs of two decades ago showcases global-labour-cost-arbitrage, even in the ‘educated’ category!

Average vs marginal benefits

However unsavoury this might sound, the employability of those in the lower spectrum of the IQ distribution cannot be improved just by spending more on education and skilling initiatives. We should not confuse average benefits with marginal benefits. With the launch of its Skill India Mission, the government has been pushing ahead policy agenda to give people practical vocational skills and better qualifications, backed with financial rewards for those who complete their training. But the experience of skill training institutions indicates challenges in programme construct and/or market acceptance: low enrolment or adoption of these training programmes and the trend of ‘students’ quitting their jobs soon after their initial job placement.

Mindsets and skillsets

The social cost of efficiency is very high in countries where jobs are not being created at the pace in which unemployment is an issue. We don’t want that the ‘gated communities’ will start wanting to keep ‘rest of them’ away; a clear sign of potential conflict between haves and have-nots.

While many research papers have been pushing for skill development, the larger question to ponder is: Do much of our current jobs in the market really need any prior skilling at all?

Almost every task might need minimal skills impartment as long as the attitude of the individual is to ‘learn and earn’; for example, retail store sales or cashiering jobs don’t need a degree or even a 12th standard pass-out. There are countless jobs where we have crowded our minds with confused correlation between perceived skillset and the job-in-current-market—like agriculture workers, logistics industry, blue-collared, gig economy members and so many more.

The International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) classification of occupations is based as a hierarchy of skills, primarily on the basis of formal education and technical qualifications. With this, all elementary occupations are tagged at the lowest skill level; defined as ‘typically involves the performance of simple and routine physical or manual tasks’. Based on the ILO framework, the government of India revised its system of the National Classification of Occupations in 2016. All jobs requiring ‘manual’ labour are treated as low skill and hence workers classified as ‘unskilled’. This sets off contradictions. Doesn’t manual labour too require usage of one’s mind (or having presence of mind)? Are life-lessons or ‘native intelligence’ not worth it (as they are not captured in these definitions)? The crux of the issue is ‘how skills get interpreted’. This rejigging of definition can change the way our skills are priced.

So, occupations classified as ‘elementary’ and ‘informal’ will always employ ‘unskilled’ workers, thereby paying them least wages. The dichotomous divide between white- and blue-collar work hinges on the hierarchical social acceptance or social acceptance of formal education. This further encourages the divide between formal-informal, rural-urban, experience-qualifications.

Creation of unskilled jobs

Hundreds of millions of informal sector workers in India working in both rural and urban areas have knowledge and skills to perform several types of jobs. Their experience and knowledge acquired through life-long learning, including from their ancestors, should be recognised and certified. This will make them ‘skilled’ workers, with dignity. They need attitude-to-action training.

‘The best being the enemy of the good’, let us not wait for the best outcomes. It is time to think how we can use our unskilled workforce by equipping them with the social skills needed to perform their jobs and to provide them with the means of livelihood and pair them up with ‘unskilled jobs’, however unsexy or less glamorous it may sound. After all, going on an empty stomach is so.

The author is a corporate advisor and independent markets commentator. Twitter: @ssmumbai.

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