Key Points
Greater mobility, higher payouts under rural employment schemes, and lower urban wage elasticity are bringing parity between urban and rural manufacturing units, according to experts...
An ET analysis of recently released Annual Survey of Industries data found that the gap between average urban and rural worker wage narrowed to 1.05 in FY22 from 1.18 in FY15...
Mobility towards urban areas has led to depressed wages in their industries..
Meanwhile, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) works as a floor for rural wages, raising the cost of labour in these areas, said Satyaki Roy, associate professor, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development.. Rural wages recorded a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6% between FY15 and FY22, compared to 8.7% in urban areas...
An ET calculation using the consumer price index to deflate earnings shows that the real urban average worker wage at Rs 1.2 lakh was 5.8% higher than the real rural average wage in FY22, compared with a 19.7% gap between the two in FY15..
