Thursday, March 17 2005 13:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Poor quality of employment in India has led to a mismatch in expectations and availability of jobs forcing the skilled manpower to explore opportunities abroad, five leading international think tanks have said.

"The quality of employment in India is poor. The vocational training system is not sufficient to cater to the pressing needs of the Indian labour market," according to the think tanks that studied the impact of globalisation in India, Russia, Egypt, South Africa and El Salvador.

Economic Policy Institute in Washington, Inter Trade Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Economic Studies in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Institute for Applied Science in Oslo, Norway, National Labour and Economic Development Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa and Korean Labour Studies Institute, Seoul, Korea took part in the study.

The chapter on India States that unemployment among illiterates was only 0.2 per cent compared to 8.8 per cent among graduates and 7.8 per cent among persons with a higher secondary education.

"The mismatch between demand and supply of skills and education in the labour market has led to an outflow of educated manpower from India," the study said.

It said that about 90 per cent workers in India work in the unorganised sector and have no collective bargaining power.

"In general, available data on wages show that wages received by workers are usually less than the official minimum fixed wage rates," the study said adding that employers usually fix these wages on their own and workers have little power to change them.