The economic downturn, which gripped Indian industry from the latter half of 2007 to 2009, did not have any major impact on employment in the organised sector even as the growth in gross value addition in the manufacturing industry has dropped significantly, says a survey conducted by the government.
The Annual Survey of Industry, carried out by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for the year 2008-09 shows that the growth in Gross Value Addition in the manufacturing industry nearly halved to 10.59 per cent from 20.12 per cent in 2007-08.
Despite much talk of loss in employment during the period, particularly in the manufacturing sector, the survey reveals that growth of employment in the sector accelerated to 7.06 per cent from 4.03 per cent in the previous year.
“In these findings, the economic downturn has impacted the gross and net value addition in the industry but it seems that it has not impacted employment much. However, this is only the organised sector and the impact of the downturn was felt beyond 2008-09 as well,” said Chief Statistician of India T C A Anant after releasing the report.
Wages to workers also grew at a robust rate of 17.13 per cent during the year as against 15.21 per cent in the previous year. However, this might be a because of the high rate of inflation persisting in the first half of the year due to high crude prices, which crashed in September 2008.
According to the survey the number of factories in India’s organised sector in 2008-09 was 150,000 units, a rise of 6 per cent from the previous year. The invested capital — Rs 15,35,000 crore — in the factory sector, commonly termed as organised manufacturing sector, had grown by 19.92 per cent in 2008-09 over the previous year.
The capital-output ratio, a measure of the capital required to produce one unit of net output, or net value added, increased from 1.76 in 2007-08 to 2 in 2008-09. The level of efficiency, defined as the ratio of net value added to gross output, has slightly declined over the previous year from 0.17 to 0.16.
