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Calling in sick at work, taking a few days off to go on a trip or staying home to care for your newborn is actually a luxury for almost half of the employed people in India. This is what the data from the Annual Report of the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) shows.
According to the report, 46.8 per cent of the regular wage/salaried persons and casual labourers in the country are not eligible for paid leaves. “Paid leave included leave during sickness, maternity or such leave as an employee was eligible to take without loss of pay, as per the conditions of employment. The situation was assessed excluding the paid off-days/holidays, which an enterprise normally allows to its employees,” the PLFS report notes.
The only good news here is that the proportion of these employees has come down 5.5 percentage points between 2019-20 and 2022-23. In the 2019-20 period, 52 per cent of the salaried class had no paid leave in India. It dropped to 47.9 per cent in 2020-21. While it went up to 49 per cent in 2021-22, it has come to an all-time low in 2022-23.
Not eligible
In nine States, a majority of the workers get no paid leave. These States are Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh. The situation is worst in Rajasthan where the proportion of such workers is 63 per cent. In rural Rajasthan, almost three-quarters of male workers aren’t eligible for paid leave.
In poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, the proportion of these people is almost 60 per cent. It is 57 per cent each in Sikkim and Gujarat.
The States that fared well in this aspect include Mizoram, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa, where less than 25 per cent of employed people get no access to paid leaves.
The gender factor
Data shows that compared with men, more proportion of salaried women are eligible for paid leave. While 53.1 per cent of salaried men aren’t eligible for paid leaves, among women, the proportion is 43.5 per cent. This could also be because certain establishments allow maternity leave to their women employees.
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