UGC NET/JRF EXAM, June-2019* Labour and Social Welfare

National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) has used three concepts for measuring unemployment.

These are:

1. Unemployment on Usual Principal Status Basis (UPS Unemployment): It is measured in number of persons, i.e., persons who remain unemployed for a major part of the year. It is a measure of chronic unemployment during the year.

2. Unemployment on Current Weekly Status Basis (CWS Unemployment): It is the number of persons who cannot find a job even for an hour during the survey week. It measures not only the chronic unemployment but also the seasonal unemployment and underemployment.

3. Unemployment on Current Daily Status Basis (CDS Unemployment): It is the number of persons who cannot find work on a day or some days during the survey week. It is a comprehensive measure of chronic unemployment and underemployment.

Human capital appraisal approach: The human capital appraisal approach, outlined by Friedman, Hatch and Walker (1998) of Arthur Andersen, is based on the belief that there are live stages in the management of human capital: clarification stage, assessment stage, design stage, implementation stage and monitoring stage. There are five areas ol human capital management:

(i) recruitment, retention and retirement;
(ii) rewards and performance management;
(iii) career development, succession planning and training;
(iv) organizational structure; and
(v) human capital enablers.

A 5 x 5 matrix using these five stages and five areas could be used to evaluate and manage human capital well.

For example, in the clarification stage, managers examine their human capital programmes to fit into their strategy and overall culture. They may also examine each of the areas to fit into the strategy, and so on.

The scientific management movement focused primarily on production, management, organisation, technology and science, but little attention was paid to how people might be impacted, the way in which they react and are likely to react to future.

As long ago as the 1920s there was opposition to the scientific principles as discretion was removed from individuals as a way of centralising control and authority into specialised functions.

The focus of attention had been almost exclusively on the jobs which individuals performed and how they could be improved. Benefits went disproportionately to the company and the individual's work experience was dehumanizing as they were treated as extensions to the machines.

During the radical social and cultural changes that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s, the behavioural theories emerged that stresses the importance of group dynamics, complex human motivations and the manager's leadership style.

It also emphasizes the employee's social and economic needs and the influence of the organisation's social setting on the quantity and quality of work produced, and its focuses on two competencies - communication and teamwoek.

This increase in attention to the human factors has become known as the 'human relations school of management'.

Some of the more prominent theorists in this field included Elton Mayo, Mary Parker Follett, Chester Barnard, Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, Rensis Likert, Frederick Herzberg, David McClelland and Chris Argyris.

The establishment of Bombay Mill Hands Association, under the presidentship of N.M. Lokhande in 1890, is often referred to as the starting point of the Indian labour movement.

The purpose of this Association was primarily "to invite the attention of the Government and the public to the many grievances of the textile workers of Bombay and to agitate for the revision of the Factories Act of 1881".

The Association also published a journal called 'Dinbandhu'. However, the Bombay Mill Hands' Association was in no sense, a trade union, for it had no membership, no fund, no rules and it did not organise any real sort of working class struggle against the employers.

Lokhande was a philanthropic promoter of labour legislation and workers' welfare-not a pioneer of labour organisation or labour struggle.

The ILO defines the Social Security concept, in Into the 21st Century: The Development of Social Security, as follows: Social security has wider aims than the prevention or relief of poverty. It is the response to an aspiration for security in its widest sense

. Its fundamental purpose is to give individuals and families the confidence that their level of living and quality of life will not, in so far as is possible, be greatly eroded by any social or economic eventuality.

This involves not just meeting needs as and when they arise but also preventing risks from arising in the first place.

John R. Commons was a founder of the field of labour economics and was the most prominent labour economist of the early also widely recognized-along with Sidney and Beatrice Webb of the United Kingdomas a founder of the field of industrial relations.

Commons' academic work on specific labour and industrial relations topics, such as trade unions, labour management and labour history, are regarded as pioneering and continue to be cited. Commons is also generally regarded as one of the three founding members of the American institutional school of economics.