Mitra Articles on India’s Labor Force Published in East Asia Forum and Economic Times

January 12, 2024

East Asia Forum,The Economic Times

India

Labor

Trade

East Asia Forum

The Economic Times

Devashish Mitra

"India’s labour reforms and FTAs could spell luck for its labour force," written by Devashish Mitra, Gerald B. and Daphna Cramer Professor of Global Affairs, was published in East Asia Forum.

Recent labor reforms and new free trade agreements, along with the favorable geopolitical climate, suggest that India is taking steps in the right direction, says Mitra.

"The recent set of labour reforms are an encouraging development," he writes. "Numerous labour regulations have been consolidated into four codes, eliminating contradictions among them."

Mitra also authored "View: India’s largely unskilled labour force makes a push for high-value services & manufacturing futile," published in Economic Times.

"Since almost 80% of the labour force doesn't even have a higher secondary education, an important way to provide good jobs in a reasonable amount of time to a rapidly growing labour force is by expanding low-skilled, labour-intensive, formal-sector manufacturing (textiles, apparel, footwear, electronics and especially its assembly, labour-intensive parts of automobile manufacturing), where the average wage is several folds higher than in agriculture and the urban informal sector," Mitra writes.