When finding a job became a nightmare in Bengaluru after note ban, GST

Kurubarahalli is a congested corner of India's technology capital, packed with narrow roads, alleys, heavy traffic, shops and darshinis, as small self-service eateries are called here. The area starts humming with activity as early as 7.30 am.

Among the first to arrive at the labour hub here are daily wagers seeking employment. On any working day you can see 1,000-1,500 workers waiting to be picked up for jobs, mostly as plumbers, painters, carpenters and masons. Women search for jobs as helpers, mixing concrete or moving bricks.

Labour contractors arrive here on motorcycles or auto-rickshaws to pick up the day’s supply of workers, most of whom they know by face. The official minimum wage for a skilled worker is Rs 600 a day for men and Rs 300 for women. By noon, those who can will have found a job, and by 2 pm the labour hub will have emptied out.

Among those waiting at Kurubarahalli for cleaning and plastering jobs was Swamy, 36. He migrated to Bengaluru five years ago from Pandavapura in Mandya district, 130 km southwest of the capital city. An illiterate man, he wanted to earn enough to provide a good “convent” education for his three daughters, one of whom is physically challenged and in need of constant care.

Swamy must now be satisfied with two to three days of work a week.

“Even that is a blessing,” he said.

In November 2016, the Modi government decided to withdraw 86% of India’s currency, by value, knocking the bottom out of the casual jobs sector which ran on cash payments, as IndiaSpend reported in this 2017 series. Till then, Swamy and his wife, a domestic worker, were together earning about Rs 25,000 a month. Today, they struggle to collectively make between Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000 per month. The 20 days of work a month that Swamy was once assured of have dwindled to 10.

About five million men, mostly from the unorganised sector, lost their jobs over the two years following demonetisation, said an April 2019 report, the latest estimate of job losses, published by the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE), Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. The numbers would spiralled if women were to be included.

In 2016, urban Karnataka hosted around 300,000-400,000 workers in the construction sector, said D Rajashekhar, professor of economics at the Institute of Social and Economic Change. Bengaluru’s construction sector hosted a “conservative” 500,000 construction workers, including those from neighbouring areas like Hosur, Dharmapuri, Bidar and Gulbarga, Tumkur, Ramnagar, Kolar among others, said a 2016 study carried out by Venkataramanappa, assistant professor at Bangalore University. Metro rail construction in the city has also pulled in daily wage labourers from neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.

All these workers were hit when demonetisation was announced.

This is the seventh of an 11-part series (you can read the first part here, second here, third here, fourth here, fifth here and sixth here), reported from nationwide labour hubs--places where unskilled and semi-skilled workers gather to seek contract jobs--to track employment in India’s informal sector. This sector, which absorbs the country’s mass of illiterate, semi-educated and qualified-but-jobless people, employs 92% of India’s workforce, according to a 2016 International Labour Organization study that used government data.

By delving into the lives and hopes of informal workers, this series provides a reported perspective to ongoing national controversies over job losses after demonetisation and the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2017. The number of jobs declined by a third over four years to 2018, according to a survey by the All India Manufacturers’ Organisation, which polled 34,700 of its 300,000 member-units. In 2018 alone, 11 million jobs were lost, mostly in the unorganised rural sector, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a consultancy.