Labour-intensive sectors
Also called: Labour-intensive industries · Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Labour-intensive sectors are sectors where wages make up a large share of production costs. They use many workers for each unit of output instead of many machines. Because of this, they are India's main job creators. They matter most in a country with a huge workforce and many less-skilled workers. Examples are textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, food processing, construction and tourism.
Example
A garment factory in Tiruppur employs hundreds of workers, many of them women, to cut and stitch clothes. Class 11 shows garment factories as a new source of factory jobs for women.
Don't confuse with
- Capital-intensive sectors: these use more machines and fewer workers, like petrochemicals. India's growth has leaned towards these sectors, which is one reason for jobless growth.