Regular salaried employees

Also called: Regular wage employees, Regular wage or salaried employment, Regular wage employment · Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Employment: Growth, Informalisation and Other Issues"

Meaning

A regular salaried employee is a worker who is hired by a person or an enterprise on a steady, continuing basis and is paid regularly (as a salary or wage) in return. The test is regular attachment to the job, not how often the worker is paid.

This status matters because it is one measure of job quality. A regular job is usually more secure and steady than casual work. The share of regular salaried workers shows how far India's workforce is moving towards stable jobs. The formula for the share is:

Share of regular salaried workers (%) = (regular salaried workers ÷ total workers) × 100

Explanation

Where it fits: the three statuses of employment

• Status of employment is a worker's position in the enterprise where they work. India uses three broad statuses:
• Self-employed: owns and runs an enterprise to earn a living, for example a cement-shop owner.
• Casual worker: hired casually on other people's farms or enterprises and paid for the work done, for example a construction worker.

• Regular salaried employee: hired by a person or an enterprise and paid regularly, for example a civil engineer in a construction company (NCERT's example).

• What status tells us:

• The Worker Population Ratio (WPR) (the percentage of people in the population who have work) tells us how many people work [2].
• Status tells us about the kind of work. It shows:
  • attachment to the job: how secure and steady the job is;
  • authority: how much say the worker has over the enterprise and over co-workers.
• A regular employee has steady attachment to the job but usually little authority over the enterprise.

The key test: regular attachment, not pay frequency

• NCERT Class 11 examples of regular workers:
• an SBI cashier;
• a private-hospital nurse on a monthly salary for five years;

• a rice-mill worker "paid daily but employed regularly".

• The trap in the rice-mill case:

• Daily pay makes the worker look casual.
• But the worker goes to the same job every day on a continuing basis.

• So the worker is regular, not casual.

• Compare with a casual worker: a loading worker in a wholesale vegetable shop is hired only when there is work. That is casual work.

Who gets regular jobs: gender and rural–urban pattern

• Regular salaried jobs are more common in urban areas.
• Urban enterprises such as factories, offices and shops need workers on a regular basis.

• So they hire people on a steady, continuing basis.

• Rural areas have fewer regular jobs.

• Most farming families own and farm their plots.

• So farmers and their helping family members are counted as self-employed, not regular.

• By gender (NCERT charts): regular salaried jobs employ 21% of men and 16% of women. For both men and women, self-employment is still over 50%.

What makes the share rise or fall

• Trend (NCERT Table 6.3, % of workforce):

Year	1972-73	1983	1993-94	2011-12	2017-18	2023-24
Regular salaried	15.4	13.8	13.6	18.0	21.1	21.7

• From 1972-73 to 1993-94: the share fell slightly, from 15.4% to its lowest level of 13.6%. In this period casual work grew (casualisation).
• Since 2011-12: the share has risen, from 18.0% to 21.7% (2023-24).
• What pushes it up: formalisation. Formalisation means more jobs come under the organised sector, with registration, payroll records and social-security cover.
• Stricter PF and GST compliance → firms must keep proper records → more workers are put on formal payrolls.
• EPFO (Employees' Provident Fund Organisation) net additions more than doubled, from 61 lakh (FY19) to 131 lakh (FY24) [3].

• Nearly 61% of net payroll additions were people under 29 years of age [3].

• What holds it down:

• a large farm sector, where most people are self-employed;

• many small household enterprises that do not hire regular workers.

• Worked example: reading the share

• Suppose 100 workers in 2023-24. About 22 are regular salaried, 58 self-employed and 20 casual.
• Regular share = (22 ÷ 100) × 100 = 22% (NCERT: 21.7%).
• Change from 1993-94 to 2023-24 = 21.7 − 13.6 = 8.1 percentage points.
• Change from 2011-12 to 2023-24 = 21.7 − 18.0 = 3.7 percentage points.
• Caution: the shares always add up to 100. A share that stays the same can still mean more regular workers in absolute numbers, because the total workforce grew as WPR rose from 46.8% (2017-18) to 58.2% (2023-24) [2].

In India

• Who measures it:
• The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), started the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) in April 2017 [2].

• Data for 1972-73 to 2011-12 come from the NSSO's large five-yearly employment–unemployment surveys.

• How it is measured:

• Status shares use usual status (ps+ss), which looks at a person's main activity over the last 365 days [2].
• Principal status (ps) is the activity on which the person spent the most time in those 365 days [2].

• Subsidiary status (ss) is extra economic work done for 30 days or more in the year [2].

• Latest figure: regular salaried workers were 21.7% of the workforce in 2023-24 (NCERT Table 6.3), up from 21.1% in 2017-18.

• Formal payroll growth: EPFO net additions rose from 61 lakh (FY19) to 131 lakh (FY24) [3].
• Pay lagging behind: the Economic Survey 2024-25 notes that corporate profits reached a 15-year peak in FY24, while wages lagged behind [3]. So more regular jobs have not always meant better pay.
• International view (ILO): wage and salaried workers, together with employers, are counted as non-vulnerable employment [4].

Don't confuse with

• Casual worker: hired only when there is work and paid for the work done. A regular worker has a continuing job. Pay frequency does not decide status: a worker "paid daily but employed regularly" is still regular.
• Formal employment: "regular" describes attachment to the job. "Formal" describes protection, such as a written contract, PF and paid leave. A regular employee with no written contract and no PF is still informal.
• Self-employed / unpaid family worker: they own or help run the enterprise and get no wage from an employer. Unpaid family helpers are counted within the self-employed, not as regular workers.
• Worker Population Ratio (WPR): WPR measures how many people work. The regular salaried share measures what kind of work they do. Do not confuse the regular share of 21.7% (2023-24) with WPR of 58.2% (2023-24) [2].

Prelims Hooks

• India's three statuses are self-employed, regular salaried and casual. Regular salaried workers were 21.7% of the workforce in 2023-24 (NCERT Table 6.3).
• The lowest regular salaried share in NCERT Table 6.3 was 13.6% in 1993-94, the casualisation phase.
• NCERT charts: regular salaried jobs employ 21% of men and 16% of women. Regular jobs are more common in urban areas.
• Trap: a rice-mill worker "paid daily but employed regularly" is a regular worker, not a casual one.
• PLFS was launched by the NSSO (MoSPI) in April 2017. Status shares use usual status (ps+ss) with a 365-day reference period [2].
• In the ILO classification, wage and salaried workers + employers = non-vulnerable employment [4].

Mains Points

• Formalisation is real but slow (GS-III):
• EPFO net additions doubled from 61 lakh (FY19) to 131 lakh (FY24) [3], and the regular share rose from 18.0% (2011-12) to 21.7% (2023-24).
• But about 78% of workers are still self-employed or casual.

• Link this to the Labour Codes, social security for gig and platform workers, and the growth of labour-heavy manufacturing and MSMEs.

• Regular is not the same as decent:

• Many regular workers have no written contract, PF or paid leave, so they are still informal.
• Wages lagging behind record corporate profits in FY24 [3] show that job status alone does not guarantee good pay.

• A good answer adds contract, social security, earnings and hours to the status picture.

• Where should workers leaving casual work go?

• Casual work fell from 31.8% (1993-94) to about 20% (2023-24), but most of the recent shift went into self-employment, not regular jobs [3].
• Policy should aim at employment-intensive growth that creates regular, protected jobs. Otherwise the result may be low-earning self-employment and more working poor (people who have work but earn too little to lift their household above the poverty line).

Related concepts

• Status of employment
• Self-employed
• Unpaid family worker
• Casual workers
• Working poor

Read more

• Status of employment: self-employed, regular salaried and casual workers