SEMINAR ON “LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT : THEORY AND
EMPIRICS”
-Dr.Debesh Bhowmik
Bengal Economic Association has organized a Mid-Year
National Seminar on 27th September 2013 at Krishnagar Government
College,Nadia,W.B.,India.This Seminar has been sponsored by ICSSR.The theme of
the seminar was “Labour and Employment:Theory and Empirics”.This seminar was
inaugurated by Dr. Arabinda Ghosh,ADM,Nadia who is also an Economist.In his
address he emphasized that in India like ours,in the process of globalization,growth
is not the single factor alone for socio economic development. The welcome
address was given by Prof. Jayasri Ray Choudhury,Principal Krishnagar
Govt.College and the Association’s President Prof. Biswajit Chatterjee of
Jadavpur University.In the technical session-I,the key note paper presented by
Prof.Debendra Narayan Bhattacharjee,Director APEX Management Institute, Kolkata
on “Labour and employment-Theory and Empirics:An Analytical Overview”.In his
address, summarized some prominent theories such as disequilibrium theories of
fix price model type,implicit contract,efficiency models of various types’
insider-outsider theories which were supported by empirical studies where
variations across countries in the impact of economic activities on price
setting were found to be generally small across the countries were mentioned. Large
variations in unemployment effects on wages are strongly inversely related to
the duration of benefits and directly related to the proportion of small firms
in the economy.He also mentioned some limitations of major theoretical pursuits
of mainstream approach.Prof.Rajib Bhattacharjee of Hoogly Hohsin College,on his
paper “A Review of employment Scenario in India in the Post Liberalisation Era”,said
that the longterm trends in overall employment situation with special focus on
employment in the organized sector of India which consists of both the public
and private sector and highlighted the trends in women’s employment in the organized
sector of India.Shreya Some of Jadavpur University in her paper”Balance between
the growth of labour force and employment opportunities:the constraints”
focuses mainly on different constraints that lead to an imbalance between the
growth of labour force and employment opportunities along with some policy
measures taken by the Govt. of India. Dr.Sadhan Chandra Kar,Dr.Surya Narayan
Ray of Dinhata College and Ranjit Kumar Ghosh of Alipurduar College on their
joint paper on ”Employment Generating Capacity of an Agrarian Based Economy in
Pre and Post- liberalisation period” throw light on the potentiality of an
agricultural alternative sector in generating employment opportunity for the
labourers who are being employmed rather disguisedly in the basic sector of our
rural economy.Dr.Tushar Das-Headmaster of Sadananda Mission High School,Howrah,
on his paper , “Economic Reform and Labour Market Characteristics in all India
and West Bengal:A comparative Study” mentioned the changing trends of wage
share in value added ,labour productivity and unit labour costs of producing
output in industries for West Bengal as well as for all india level over the
period from 2000-01 to 2007-08.Arini Bhattacharjee,a researcher,on her paper,”Employment
and unemployment in India” emphasised on current scenario of unemployment and
role of RNFS in reducing rural poverty and RNFS
provides diverse employment opportunities in rural areas itself that ,in
turn, reduces urban migration and urban unemployment.Prof.Moumita Chakraborty
of Kanchrapara College,in her paper on “Increase in higher education enrolment
and its impact on employment level in India” studied to discuss issues
regarding rise in higher educational attainment and change in employment level
in the post reform era and also tries to address the important initiatives
taken by central government to synchronise quality education with changing job
requirement.Prof.Manoj Kumar Halder of Krishnagar Govt.College studies the
causes and impacts of internal migration on rural weaker ,marginal section of
Karimpur Bloc-I of Nadia District.Prof.Tanusree Banerjee of Krishnagar
Govt.College, in her paper on “Stigmatized Employment-A Statistical Measure”
proposed a model to estimate the proportion( of Stigmatised employment randomized
response survey) was unbiasedly without
using randomized device which is more efficient than Takahasi model.Suman Das
of Krishnagar Govt.College and Suman Pal ,Prof.of said college in their paper on,”Impact
of Village tourism on income and employment generation” suggested a plan for
the generation of employment through sustainable use of local resources and
village tourism for the betterment of economic conditions of the villagers of
Baranti. Dr.Debesh Bhowmik of International Institute for Development Studies,Kolkata,in
his paper on “The nexus between productivity and employment” tried to explore
the various studies on the nexus between the productivity growth and the
employment through VAR model of Dritsakis(2012) and
Blanchand, Solow and Wilson(1995) model and found cointegration and
causality but the association went to either direction. In the short run, the
nexus was seen negative but not in all countries and in the long run , the
association was found both positive and negative in the world economies like
Europe, America ,Africa and in Asia. No general conclusion could not be drawn
on the nexus because state of technology, employees benefit, wage structure,
hours of labour vary from country to country whether it was in USA,France,UK
,India or in EU. Even, the association is different from sectors to sectors. Above
all, if the scale of measurement of labour productivity differs, the
association between labour productivity and employment may also differ.
Lastly,the
vote of thanks was given by Prof.Anupam Chakraborty of Krishnagar Government
College,Nadia.
Will you please publish the proceedings ?
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