Context: Recent reports on industrial injuries, wage theft and protests over stagnant wages highlight how the classification of workers as ‘unskilled’ often leads to lower wages, inadequate safety measures and denial of benefits, despite their practical expertise.
Exploitation of ‘Unskilled’ Workers
- Higher workplace injuries: According to the Safe in India Foundation, workers earning below ₹8,000 per month in the automotive sector lost an average of 2.27 fingers per accident in 2024, compared with 1.54 among skilled workers earning above ₹20,000. Employers often assign dangerous power-press operations without adequate training or safety measures.
- Wage inequality: Following industrial workers’ protests in Noida and New Delhi over stagnant wages, Uttar Pradesh announced an interim monthly wage hike to ₹13,690 for ‘unskilled’ workers and ₹16,868 for ‘skilled’ workers, despite both groups facing the same inflation.
- Wage theft and denial of benefits: The International Institute of Migration and Development, Thiruvananthapuram, estimated that migrant workers classified as ‘unskilled’ in Kerala’s construction and hospitality sectors experienced 40% more wage theft than skilled workers. Employers may also deny annual increments, health benefits and safety training; contractors sometimes withhold the final month’s wages and fail to provide personal protective equipment (PPE), while sanitation workers are excluded from adequate safety protocols.
Why the ‘Unskilled’ Classification Is Misleading
- Hidden practical expertise: Workers labelled ‘unskilled’ require experience-based capabilities such as handling construction materials, identifying product defects, using tools, maintaining production tolerances, troubleshooting machinery, placing materials accurately, handling human waste safely, working in confined spaces and recognising hazardous gases.
- Institutional recognition versus actual competence: Workers may acquire substantial practical knowledge through experience but remain classified as ‘unskilled’ because they lack formal qualifications or certificates. Thus, skill classification often reflects institutional recognition and occupational status rather than actual competence.
Structural Inequalities in India’s Labour Market
- Social stratification: Caste, class, gender and migration status influence which occupations are considered skilled and adequately remunerated, perpetuating unequal access to wages, benefits and employment security.
- Informalisation of employment: Contract-based employment, such as municipal corporations hiring sanitation workers through contractors, weakens the link between competence, occupational status and remuneration while reducing workers’ bargaining power and access to protection.
- Self-reinforcing cycle: Lower wages restrict workers’ ability to obtain formal qualifications, while precarious employment discourages employers from investing in workers’ training, safety and career progression.
Legal Framework: Code on Wages, 2019
- Minimum-wage determination: The Code on Wages, 2019, requires governments to consider skill levels, geographical areas and the arduous or hazardous nature of work, among other factors, while fixing minimum wages.
- Illustration from agriculture: September wage schedules cited in the article for urban centres with the highest living costs prescribed daily rates of ₹528 for unskilled, ₹578 for semi-skilled, ₹627 for skilled and ₹694 for highly skilled agricultural work.
- Flawed perception of agricultural skills: Government classifications describe unskilled agricultural work as weeding and manual irrigation requiring mainly physical effort, while highly skilled work includes calibrating combine harvesters and managing pest outbreaks. However, weeding and irrigation also demand learned techniques, including weed identification, assessment of soil conditions, careful tool use and weather-based planning.
Way Forward
- Recognise experience-based skills: Develop competency-based assessments and recognition of prior learning so that workers’ practical expertise translates into formal certification and fair remuneration.
- Strengthen labour protection: Enforce minimum wages, timely payment, workplace safety standards, PPE provision and access to health benefits, including for contract and migrant workers.
- Break the informality trap: Expand affordable skill certification, employer-funded training, social security and pathways to secure employment, ensuring that occupational labels do not become a justification for exploitation.
