Labour Markets

A government job offers security, status and a predictable wage in a market that offers little of these,” Sabina Dewan, Founder and Executive Director of JustJobs Network, told Geetha N V for a piece in The Federal.

India’s skills gap is not just about training more young people; it is about making sure training responds to where jobs exist. Speaking with India Today, Sabina Dewan, Founder and Executive Director of JustJobs Network, argues that Industrial Training Institute (ITI) courses need to be shaped around the 𝗵𝘆𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆, using granular labour-demand data to connect training with local opportunities. She also points to the need to change how young people and families perceive skilled trades, particularly as 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗲-𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 increasingly important in an economy shaped by AI.

How does India’s emerging legal framework for gig and platform workers measure up to new global labour standards? In her latest piece for Tech Law Forum, JustJobs Network’s Kaushiki Sanyal examines India’s evolving approach to platform work in light of the ILO’s new Convention on Decent Work in the Platform Economy. She examines what the Convention means for gig workers and where India’s current framework stands on minimum wages, social security, occupational safety, algorithmic transparency, protection against deactivation, and collective rights.

India’s labour market appears to be moving in the right direction: more people are working, labour force participation is up, and unemployment is down. But there’s more to these numbers. A large part of the increase in labour force participation is coming from rural women. And much of that rise is linked to agriculture, self-employment and unpaid work. At the same time, urban women continue to have the lowest labour force participation and the highest unemployment rate among all groups. So while the headline numbers suggest progress, they also raise an important question: what kind of jobs are driving this change?

For migrant farmers cultivating informally rented land in Delhi's Madanpur Khadar, rising temperatures raise the cost of survival. With work depending on access to water, secure land tenure, and access to markets, extreme heat exacerbates these conditions, making long hours of work more difficult and livelihoods more uncertain. This fieldwork account explores how heat is experienced by farmers who fall outside conventional employer-employee relationships, and why heat adaptation must look beyond exposure alone to the wider conditions that shape their ability to work and survive

India’s platform economy is exposing a deeper question about social security: can a welfare system built around occupations protect workers whose jobs, platforms and locations keep changing? JustJobs Network’s Kaushiki Sanyal explores this question in her latest piece for The Policy Edge, examining why India’s welfare-board model is being tested and what a more portable, worker-centred social protection system could look like.

A new survey shows that nearly 69% of non-working urban women in India have left their jobs mainly because of childcare and household duties. In comparison, just 3.8% of men say the same. This gap points to how social expectations still put most caregiving on women, making it tough for them to stay in the workforce.

As per National Statistics Office's recent survey, nearly 69 percent of non-working urban women cite childcare and domestic responsibilities as the key reason for staying out of the workforce.

Jobs are changing. Skills are becoming obsolete. And policies are falling behind. This was the stark consensus at a global webinar bringing together economists, labour experts, and development practitioners from across the Global South — all united by one urgent message: the time for incremental reforms is over.

Bangladesh needs urgent policy reforms to prepare its workforce for the technological and structural changes that will reshape jobs over the next decade, experts said at a global webinar organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).