The Real India Works Without Resumes

And God Alone Knows the Employment Figures

Ravishankar Kalyanasundaram

India’s employment story is not written in quarterly reports or appraisals. It’s visible in chai steam, welding sparks, chopping boards, and auto horns. The formal economy may draw headlines, but it is this chaotic, uncounted workforce that keeps the country functional.

If you want to understand employment in India, don’t go to Parliament — go to Perambur. Or Palakkad. Or Andheri East at 8 a.m. Walk through the lanes behind CST in Mumbai, or the market behind Mambalam station in Chennai. Or the food bazaar near Charminar in Hyderabad. That’s where India works. Not in theory, but in practice. Not in committees, but in carts.

Beyond Agriculture and Industry: The Third India

We’ve heard it for years: agriculture is the largest employer, industry is the future. All true — on paper. But in the real world, there’s a third India working between these lines. An India that neither ploughs nor punches in, but keeps the country moving — serving, trading, repairing, transporting, cooking, hauling, selling, and surviving.

It’s not informal. It’s unacknowledged. It runs on direct cash and instant hiring. No PF, but plenty of productivity.

Employment, Mumbai to Madurai

In Mumbai, employment doesn’t wear a tie. It sells vada pavs on station bridges. It shouts out saree offers in Bhuleshwar. It sits behind the wheel of a black-and-yellow taxi dodging potholes and philosophy. It moves stock in Dadar flower market at 5 a.m., then sells SIM cards near Churchgate by noon.

In Chennai, employment declares itself in bold marker pens:

“WANTED: COUNTER SALESMAN ₹28,000 + LUNCH + QUARTERS”
“NEED LADIES FOR PACKING – ₹25,000 PER MONTH”
“BOY NEEDED FOR JUICE SHOP – DAILY ₹800”

No resumes. No appraisal forms. Just ability and availability.

Walk into any street in Kolkata’s Hatibagan, Delhi’s Karol Bagh, or Bengaluru’s Chickpet — and you’ll see the same: handwritten ads, calls for helpers, boys needed for delivery, women for packing. Jobs, everywhere.

Fruit Carts, Iron Boxes, and God’s Payroll

India’s most decentralised employment scheme? The fruit and vegetable economy.

From Matunga to Meerut, you’ll find the banana man, the pomegranate auntie, the watermelon whisperer — each with their own route, rhythm, and regular customers. They may not file IT returns, but they know how to rotate inventory, optimise perishable goods, and predict demand better than the Economic Survey.

Add to that the ironing carts — still running on hot coal and community memory. For every dozen flats, there’s one trusted ironing man who knows your dress schedule better than your spouse.

Need more? Try security guards. From Navi Mumbai to New Friends Colony, they man every building, office, and temple. Quiet, alert, uniformed employment — uncounted, but everywhere.

And then — temples. Thousands of them. Not just priests, but garland makers, queue managers, cooks, ticket issuers, bell ringers, flower sellers, and, in Tirupati, enough vendors to qualify as an unlisted mid-cap company. When was the last time anyone counted the laddu logistics department?

The Service Sector: From Software to Sambar

We forget the service sector includes far more than tech parks and consultants. India’s real service economy includes:

• Ola, Uber, Rapido: crores of drivers across the country
• Delivery fleets: Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, and your neighbourhood’s own “Bhola Fast Services”
• Hotel kitchens, housekeeping crews, event decorators, sound guys
• Mobile phone repair, roadside food joints, gym trainers, AC mechanics
• Women running tiffin services from Bandra to Bhopal

It’s an economy of hands and wheels — not files and graphs. It’s working — just not registered under “Formal Employment.”

Meanwhile in Parliament…

For over four decades, Parliament has regularly discussed the state of employment. Some members quote the Periodic Labour Force Survey. Others quote data from EPFO. A few quote each other, passionately. Every year we learn that employment is either rising, falling, formalising, or miscounted.

But outside those air-conditioned halls, a lad at Borivali station just got hired to clean lunch boxes. A man in Coimbatore found work at a bakery. A woman in Nagpur added two more clients to her ironing round. Life goes on. Work continues. While committees break for lunch.

So How Do We Count the (Un)Employed?

We don’t. But we could try smarter ways:

1. Street Census 2.0

Survey carts, barbershops, flower stalls, dosa counters. If you can smell it, you can count it.

2. QR Code Economy

Every UPI scan is a data point. Every street vendor with a QR is already in the digital economy. Count them in.

3. Heatmaps & Hustle Zones

If Google Maps can tell us which mall is crowded, it can also tell us which market is humming with economic activity.

4. Panchayat & Ward Wisdom

Ask the ones on the ground — municipal officers, local MLAs, temple trusts. They know the workforce better than any file in North Block.

5. Voluntary Worker Cards

Let workers self-declare skills, location, and earnings on a simple app — no red tape. A nation-wide “India Works” register. Let the invisible be seen.

Final Word: We Don’t Lack Jobs — We Lack Imagination

India works. It doesn’t always clock in. But it gets the job done. On scooters, in sandals, behind stalls, beside temples. It does not wait for a policy note. It wakes up and starts moving.

So the next time someone says India has an “employment problem,” we must ask — which India are you looking at?

Because the one on the ground isn’t waiting to be counted.
It’s already working — and wondering what’s taking us so long.

And as for the statistics?

Well, God alone knows. And He isn’t sharing it with the Labour Ministry.