INDIA'S LABOUR FORCE: LABOUR LAWS & PRACTICES
The population of India as of the official July 2005 census estimate is 1,080,264,388, or approximately 1.1 billion. Of this number, 482.2 million (44.6 percent) are included in the country's labour force. One explanation for the relatively low level of the labour force is that 31.2 percent of the Indian population is under the age of 15 years old. Hidden within the demographic statistics is the fact that many of the 337.6 million Indian children under the age of 15 are working as child labourers in spite national laws that prohibit the employment of children. Persons over the age of 65 in India account for less than five-percent of the population (United States Central Intelligence Agency, 2005).
In the United States and in other developed economies, one is exposed to complaints and discussions concerning the offshoring of jobs from the developed economies to India because of low wages and lax labour laws (Dolan & Meredith, 2004). As an example, the average wage for a well educated highly skilled computer software programmer ranges from US$8,440 per year in India to US$28,174 per year in Canada to US$70,000 per year in the United States (Bardhan & Kroll, 23). Most workers in India, however, do not earn wages commensurate with those of software programmers. The per capital gross domestic product in India in 2004 was US$3,100 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2005).
With respect to labour laws and labour practices, workers in India are beneficiaries of some of the strongest labour protections in the world - on paper (in law). There are, however, two major problems with the legal protections provided to Indian workers. First, there are many loopholes that allow employers to ignore labour laws for some classes of workers and workers in some industries. Workers in designated special economic zones and workers is designated industries are excluded from many legal protections (Besl...