Casual workers PSUs hired fell 44% in first Covid-19 pandemic year

Experts say lockdown and near stalling of business may have prompted the decline

In FY21, when Covid hit, central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) employed 44.3 per cent fewer casual workers and 7 per cent fewer contractual workers than in the previous year, according to the Public Sector Enterprises Survey.

In the fiscal year 2020-21, about 29,273 casual or daily wage workers were employed by CPSEs compared to 52,553 in FY20.

Contractual employees of public sector undertakings (PSUs) declined from 516,657 in FY20 to 481,395 in FY21. In total, the 389 PSUs employed 1.37 million workers in FY21, down from 1.48 million in FY20. The rise in Covid cases in the country prompted the Centre to impose the world’s strictest lockdown. This led to labourers moving back to their native places after lack of employment.

The lockdown and near stalling of business may have prompted this decline in hiring activity of PSUs, experts said. A mass exodus of labourers from cities also led to a shortage in workers when business activity in the country resumed. The uncertainty from Covid-19 had discouraged workers to migrate back to the cities for work.

The pandemic forced 51.6 per cent of men in urban India to migrate to their rural homes in what could be the country’s worst reverse migration, according to a Periodic Labour Force Survey report released by the National Statistical Office last month.

In FY20, when the number of regular employees had seen a fall of 150,304, the Centre had attributed the decline to be offset “to some extent” by increase in the casual workers and employees.

In FY21, the number of regular employees, casual workers and contractual workers dropped by 48,840, 23,280 and 35,262, respectively.

In FY21, the most number of employees — about 316,967 — were employed by PSUs in the coal sector. This was followed by petroleum (refinery and marketing) and heavy and medium engineering at 214,895 and 142,547, respectively.

The least number of workers were employed by agro-based industries and financial services. About 2,467 employees were with PSUs in agro-based industries and 3,150 were with financial services PSUs. Financial services PSUs do not cover banks.

Employment in PSUs is categorised as ‘on-roll’ and ‘off-roll’. Managerial staff, supervisory and non-executive employees fall under the on-roll category. Casual and contract workers are classified as ‘off-roll’ staff.

PSUs saw the share of on-roll employees as a percentage of total employees increase by 100-basis points to 63 per cent in FY21. The remaining 37 per cent were off-roll employees, which saw a one percentage point drop from FY20.

The highest share of on-roll or regular employees was in trading and marketing, financial services, and power transmission in FY21, the survey said. The majority of regular employees of PSUs in FY21 were skilled, it added. The share of skilled employees as a percentage of total regular employees stood at 78 per cent or 668,406 in FY21.

PSUs in transportation, vehicles and equipment, telecommunications and information technology, and power transmission had the highest share of skilled employees. Those in industrial and consumer goods, trading and marketing, and coal had the lowest share of skilled regular employees.