Slowing exports may affect India's job market

According to the recent data released, the slowing

exports are signalling at a crisis in labour intensive industries like readymade garments, electronic goods, and gems and jewellery industry too would suffer a huge blow, if demand remains sluggish in major exporting destinations.

Drying demand for labour-intensive goods is also giving rise to renewed fear of joblessness in the sector, which is the main source of livelihood for a substantial chunk of India’s population. According to the latest export figures, the growth in labour-intensive exports like gems & jewellery and readymade garments have contracted and the shine in the new and emerging markets, which fetched good return for India’s exports after the 2008 global financial crisis are slowly getting blurred.

According to the Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation (FIEO), the prolonged crisis in the United States and European countries are in all likelihood going to affect the emerging markets of Latin America, South Africa and South-East Asia in the coming few months. The official export data for the month of April clearly shows a definite decline in demand for labour-intensive products in the foreign markets.

India could achieve a handsome 20 per cent export growth in the year 2011-12 on the back of a good performance by labour intensive sectors and growing demand from the emerging markets. Meanwhile, exports had registered around 18 per cent growth in all textile segments last year.