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Merchandise exports may create 20 m jobs by 2010
Financial Express - Bombay,India
Merchandise exports sustained 10 million jobs in India in
2004-05. The figure is likely to double by 2010 if the
country can achieve the export target of $150 billion in the
next five years.
According to preliminary estimate of employment generation
associated with India’s merchandise exports, conducted by
the Research and Information System for Developing Countries
(RIS), the highest number of export jobs in 2004-05 was
created in vegetable products sector (36.25 lakh) followed
by mineral products (10.40 lakh) and textile & textile
articles (7.31 lakh).
The study submitted to the commerce ministry pointed out
that the share of export-oriented manufactured products in
jobs created is declining due to their lower labour
intensity and growing labour productivity (due to
automation).
In 2001-02, the industrial sector accounted for 86% of
exports and contributed 47% of direct employment associated
with exports. It is projected that by 2010 the share of
industrial exports is likely to reach 89% while its share in
employment generation will fall marginally to 46%.
Of the total 10 million jobs in the export sector in
2004-05, direct employment was to the tune of 85.5 lakh
while indirect jobs created in logistics and related sectors
with exports added up to another 14.13 lakh jobs.
The report observed that over time, growth rates of exports
and jobs created are converging. In 2003-04, growth rate of
exports declined over the previous year, but employment
growth rate was more sharply depressed than exports. With
export growth picking up in 2004-05, employment growth rate
is likely to improve and the gap between the growth rates of
exports and employment is likely to narrow down, it said.
If the export sector is to grow in the projected manner,
growth rate of the sectoral employment will catch up with
that of exports by 2009-10, the report pointed out. This is
due to changing structure of Indian exports in favour of
more labour intensive products, changing global demand and
opportunities created by phasing out of the textile quotas,
the report observed.
By 2009-10, share of employment in the vegetable products
sector is estimated to increase marginally from the present
42.42% to 43.02% to touch 73 lakh. Textiles, which is
estimated to be the largest exporting sector by 2009-10, is
likely to overtake the mineral products sector by employing
27.35 lakh people against 24.18 lakh in the latter. While
mineral products share is estimated to grow from 12.18% to
14.26%, share of textiles is likely to increase from 8.5% to
16.3%. |
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