#TIL: How do you classify Jobs and Workers?
by Sreelakshmi R.
On any given day, multiple news headlines opine that employees must re-skill themselves to meet the ever changing demands of their jobs or risk being squeezed out of a competitive market. In an economy which is experiencing a 45-year high rate of unemployment, these warning signs ring even more ominous, especially since jobs and skills have not gone hand-in-hand. Often, terms such as “low-skilled” or “unskilled”, “skilled” and “professional” are used to describe types of jobs. But what does this nomenclature actually suggest?
In the economic sense, labour market and the value of labour can be understood as a supply- demand issue. If the labour for a particular job is in low supply, the value or remuneration for the job demanded by the labour would be higher — therefore, labour is assigned value proportional to the value it creates in the economic transaction.
Traditionally, “skilled” jobs (such as carpentry) are those performed by someone trained in a trade, and “unskilled” jobs (such as load-carrying) have been understood to be performed by people with little to no formal training or education. With low barriers to entry, there has historically been a large supply of such “unskilled” labour, and accordingly, persistently low wages for the same. On the other hand, “professionals” are regarded as a step above the skilled workers, in that they occupy the higher end of the education spectrum by way of a college degree, relative to those skilled in a trade/ vocational institute.
A further distinction may be made by the understanding of white or blue collar jobs: “white collar” is a metonymy for professionals, while those in skilled jobs are usually referred to as “blue collar workers”.
One of the key priorities of the Central Government, over the last decade has been the upskilling of India’s workforce, keeping in mind the rapidly peaking demographic dividend. Added to this, Public- Private Partnership initiatives like the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), show combined commitment of the administration and industry in this effort, so as to reap the maximum economic benefits of the bulge in the working age population. Overall, many efforts across sectors are being taken to ensure skills enhancement for all category of workers.
Today I learnt (TIL) is a weekly series by OMI that brings you interesting nuggets of information that you didn’t know you needed.
