What are key types of Rural and Urban Unemployment in India?

There are two types of unemployment in India viz. Rural Unemployment and Urban Unemployment

Rural Unemployment

Around 70 per cent of India’s population lives in villages. Agriculture is the single largest source of their livelihood. Agriculture suffers from a number of problems like dependence upon rainfall, financial constraints, obsolete techniques, etc. Rural unemployment can be of following three types viz. open, seasonal and disguised.

Open Unemployment

In the agricultural sector, there are large numbers of landless workers who are openly looking for work. Open unemployment or chronic unemployment is a situation where a large number of labour force does not get work opportunities which will get them regular income.

Seasonal Unemployment

In India, we have mostly unirrigated land which is capable of giving only one crop a year. Our farmers remain unemployed from 3-8 months a year. They have not tried to find any alternative occupation for themselves in this period like road building, brick making, house construction, digging wells, etc. Out of laziness our farmers fail to utilise their spare time, i.e., there is widespread seasonal unemployment.

Disguised Unemployment

In India, there is too much pressure of population on land. As a result, productivity per person falls. Disguised unemployment is a situation where workers are apparently employed but their marginal productivity is zero or negative.

Urban Unemployment

Urban Unemployment is mainly of three types viz. Industrial Unemployment; Educated Unemployment and Technological Unemployment

Industrial Unemployment

Unemployment among industrial labour has assumed alarming proportion as the modern industrial development based on latest capital intensive technology has not been able to absorb the ever increasing labour force. Lakhs of people pour into cities every year from the distant rural places in search of jobs and better living standards. But the slow growth of industry and the fixed capital coefficient in the modern industrial sector make it impossible to provide jobs to the migrated labour force. This causes widespread unemployment among the industrial workers.

Educated Unemployment.

The curse of unemployment is also severely inflicting the urban educated middle class people. The massive expansion in the education facilities-both at the school and the university levels, greater enrolment of people in educational institutions and the widespread craze for having university degrees, have all contributed to the growth of educated persons who are on the look out for white collar jobs.

Technological Unemployment

Technological upgradation is taking place in all spheres of activity. People who have not updated their skills in the latest technology become technologically unemployed.