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Indian labour markets are segmented based on caste, gender groups, region, types of workers and types of contractual arrangements. An important feature of the labour markets in India, notwithstanding intersectionalities across segments, is greater access to high-quality work with social security benefits to the privileged sections of the society as compared to the socially oppressed sections, including women. The latter dominate in low-quality, less stable and insecure work in the informal sector.The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures have increased the vulnerability of the informal workers, including the migrant workers. The article analyses the features of rural and urban labour markets, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, that had contributed to vulnerability of the workforce. The analysis was based on the National Statistical Office ( NSO, 2020 )—Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) database of 2018–2019, NSSO (2014)—Report of the Situation of Agricultural Households in India, NSSO (2014)—Employment and Unemployment Survey, Labour Bureau, and the Economic Survey of India. It also analyses the impacts of the pandemic on the rural labour market based on the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) database. Our analysis reveals that the rural labour market in India was more adversely affected by the lockdown measures than the urban counterpart. In the rural areas, there was collapse of non-farm employment and increased participation in agricultural work was largely an outcome of distress. Furthermore, reverse migration of workers had led to sharp decline in remittances, particularly in the eastern Indian states that are largely agrarian and poor. The article advocates policy initiatives that include expansion of the rural employment programmes for providing relief to the poor and working population in India.

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to an aggravation of the agrarian crisis in India. The rural proletariat, poor peasants, and a section of middle peasants in India have been adversely affected. The paper advances a composite policy initiative to deal with this aggravation of the agrarian crisis involving an expansion of the existing rural employment guarantee schemes, various input subsidies to farmers, universal provision of safety gear for rural producers, and an expanded public procurement of food grains. It concludes with the political prognosis of the proposed composite policy initiative.

The article analyses the conditions of employment of informal workers in four different villages with varying livelihood opportunities. Based on the secondary database, it argues that the labor market is characterized by widespread unemployment, and there has been an increase in the share of marginal workers over the years in the study villages, as well as in rural Jalpaiguri. The analysis of primary data reveals that tea cultivation and agriculture were main sources of employment of informal workers; however, these did not provide livelihood security. The wage rate was lower than the legally prescribed minimum wage in West Bengal. Also, the workers, most of whom were either Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, did not receive year-round employment in the study villages. In the absence of remittances from the migrant workers, a substantial number of households were poor. The research shows that informal wage work in the study area was insufficient for a decent level of living. The article argues that agrarian changes in the study area did not lead to desirable outcomes for substantial sections of the population.