The Myth of 'Unskilled' Labour: Code on Wages, Minimum Wages

The Lift Line

“In fact, the ‘unskilled’ status is one the state sustains rather than what naturally arises in society.” (Vasudevan Mukunth, The Hindu)

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

In the news: in an op-ed in The Hindu on 15 October 2026, Vasudevan Mukunth argues that India’s “unskilled” label is a category the state keeps alive, not a description of the work, and that it lowers the pay, safety and prospects of workers whose jobs demand real skill. He points to the Code on Wages, the Union government’s minimum wage schedules and recent evidence on injuries and wage gaps.

This is a signed column: the arguments below are the author’s, not the newspaper’s. It gives you a sharp lens on an old theme, the informal worker, by asking who decides what counts as skill.

GS Paper 3: Indian economy and issues relating to employment; inclusive growth. GS Paper 1: social stratification and its effect on work (caste, class, gender, migration). It also feeds GS Paper 2 answers on labour laws and the protection of vulnerable sections, and Essay topics on dignity of labour.

For Prelims: the Code on Wages, 2019 (Sections 2, 5, 6 and 69), the National Floor Wage, and how the Union government’s minimum wage schedule is structured by skill category and area.

Background and Context

The Code on Wages, 2019: what it says on skill

Two points of precision: skill and geographical area are alternatives (“or both”), and arduousness is optional (“may”). Under the old law minimum wages applied only to scheduled employments; the Code covers all employees.

The Union schedule: agriculture, Area A, per day

Area A is the category of urban areas with the highest costs of living in the Union government’s classification of cities.

The author’s figures are the rates that applied in September; they were revised from October 2026. VDA is the variable dearness allowance.

The evidence the author draws on

The gap between the unskilled and skilled rates in Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad is Rs 3,178 a month, though, as the author notes, both groups face the same inflation.

The Analysis

The author’s argument runs from what the label costs, to what it hides, to how it sustains itself.

1. The label sets the price of a worker’s body. The author opens with the Safe in India Foundation’s finding: in the auto sector, workers earning under Rs 8,000 a month lost 2.27 fingers per accident on average, against 1.54 for those earning more than Rs 20,000. Earlier this year, he recalls, thousands of industrial workers protested stagnant wages across Noida and New Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh responded with an interim hike for Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad that gave “unskilled” workers Rs 13,690 a month and “skilled” workers Rs 16,868, though both face the same inflation.

2. The label is used to withhold. Factories, the author writes, often use “unskilled” to justify withholding annual increments, health benefits and safety training. He cites an estimate by the International Institute of Migration and Development, Thiruvananthapuram, from a study of migrant labourers in construction and hospitality, that “unskilled” workers experienced 40% more wage theft than skilled workers; this is the author’s figure. He adds that the Safe in India report tied the higher injury rate to employers tasking such workers with dangerous power presses without training or safeguards, and that contractors deny construction workers protective equipment and often the final month’s pay, and leave sanitation workers out of safety protocols in hazardous work.

3. “Unskilled” work is skilled work. The heart of the column is a list. Supposedly unskilled workers are expected to handle construction materials, coordinate physical work, spot defects, use hand and power tools, place materials accurately, maintain tolerances in repetitive production, troubleshoot routine problems and, in sanitation, show skills such as “carefully handling human waste, working safely in confined spaces, and recognising hazardous gases”. Agriculture makes the same point. The author writes that, per the government, unskilled farm work such as weeding and manual watering needs only physical effort, while highly skilled work includes calibrating a combine harvester or managing pest outbreaks. Yet weeding and irrigation, he notes, need learned technique: identifying weeds, assessing soil, using tools without damaging plants and planning around the weather.

4. Skill is also a social category. Workers can gain a great deal of embodied knowledge through experience and still remain “unskilled” in the eyes of institutions, the author argues, because they lack the formal credentials used to recognise skill and pay for it. The labour market, in his view, is stratified along caste, class, gender and, increasingly, migration lines, and these shape which kinds of labour are counted as skilled. Informalisation, such as municipal corporations hiring sanitation workers through contractors, further weakens the link between competence and occupational status.

5. The law builds the categories in. The Code on Wages asks governments to fix minimum wages primarily by skill category or geographical area, or both, and allows them to weigh arduous and hazardous work. The Union schedules then assign different floors for comparable work. In agriculture in Area A, the author cites the September rates of Rs 528 for unskilled work and Rs 694 for highly skilled work; from October 2026 the rates are Rs 537 and Rs 705.

6. A loop that feeds itself. The classification, combined with a preference for institutional recognition, concentrates “unskilled” workers in informal jobs. And it is self-reinforcing: in the author’s words, “lower wages reduce workers’ ability to obtain institutional qualifications or avoid precarious employment while precarious employment makes employers less inclined to invest in their workers’ training and safety”.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

The Code on Wages, 2019:

• In force: from 21 November 2025, one of four labour codes replacing 29 laws.
• Section 2(k): “employee” covers skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled work, among others.
• Section 5: no employer may pay below the notified minimum rate of wages.
• Section 6(6)(a): minimum wages fixed primarily by skill category or geographical area, or both.
• Section 6(6)(b): arduous, hazardous or underground work may also be taken into account.
• Section 69: repeals the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, among other laws.
• National Floor Wage: set by the Centre; State minimum wages cannot be lower.

The Union schedule (agriculture, Area A, per day):

• From 1 October 2026: unskilled Rs 537, semi-skilled Rs 587, skilled Rs 637, highly skilled Rs 705.
• From 1 April 2026: Rs 528, Rs 578, Rs 627 and Rs 694 (the rates the author cites).

Evidence:

• Crushed 2024 (Safe in India Foundation): pay below Rs 8,000 a month, 2.27 fingers lost per accident; above Rs 20,000, 1.54.
• UP interim hike, Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad: unskilled Rs 13,690, semi-skilled Rs 15,059, skilled Rs 16,868 a month.

⚠️ Watch the trap: the Code on Wages does not make skill the only factor; it names skill or geographical area, or both, and arduousness is optional. Rs 528 was the Area A unskilled farm rate from April 2026; from October 2026 it is Rs 537. The UP interim hike of Rs 13,690 to Rs 16,868 applied to Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad, not the whole State. And Crushed 2024 grouped workers by pay, not by official skill category.

The Debate

The author’s case. The “unskilled” label does not describe work; it prices it. It rests on formal credentials, which many experienced workers lack, and it tracks social hierarchies of caste, class, gender and migration. Once applied, it justifies lower pay, fewer benefits and less safety training, which keeps workers where the label put them.

The other side. Skill categories also protect. They give every worker, including the least credentialed, a legal minimum, and they reward training with a higher rate, which gives workers a reason to upskill and employers a reason to train. Wage boards need some basis to differentiate. And the Code on Wages already lets governments weigh arduous and hazardous work, so a sanitation worker’s risk can be priced in without scrapping the categories.

The balanced verdict. The problem is less the existence of categories than how a worker gets placed in one. If experience can be assessed and certified, and if hazard and arduousness are actually counted, the same categories can become a ladder instead of a ceiling. Enforcement matters as much as classification: safety training and full wage payment are owed to every worker, whatever the label.

How to Think About This

Use a four-question test for any question on informal labour:

1. Who decides what counts as skill? Formal credentials, or the competence the job actually demands?
2. What does the label trigger? Wage rate, benefits, training, safety equipment.
3. Who ends up in the lowest category? Look at caste, class, gender and migration.
4. Does the system let workers move up? If low pay blocks qualifications and precarious work blocks training, the category becomes a trap.

Diagram-in-Words

How the author connects the skill label, its costs and the loop that sustains it.

Takeaway Box

• Core idea: “unskilled” is a status the state sustains, not a description of the work, and it lowers pay, protection and prospects.
• Law: the Code on Wages, 2019 (in force since November 2025) fixes minimum wages primarily by skill category or area, or both; arduousness may be added.
• Numbers: Area A farm rates from October 2026 run from Rs 537 (unskilled) to Rs 705 (highly skilled) a day; Crushed 2024 found 2.27 fingers lost per accident for pay below Rs 8,000 against 1.54 above Rs 20,000.
• Mains use: GS3 employment and inclusive growth; GS1 social stratification; GS2 labour laws; Essay on dignity of labour.

Revision Flowchart

Sources: The Hindu, op-ed by Vasudevan Mukunth, “The myth of ‘unskilled’ labour”, 15 October 2026; The Code on Wages, 2019 (Act No. 29 of 2019, Gazette of India); PIB, Ministry of Labour and Employment, on the labour codes coming into force (November 2025); Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), minimum wage and VDA orders for April and October 2026, as reproduced; Business Standard on the Safe in India Foundation’s Crushed 2024 report (December 2024); Scroll on the Uttar Pradesh interim wage hike (April 2026). Related: the OSH Code and workers’ right to safety information.

Source: The Myth of 'Unskilled' Labour: Code on Wages, Minimum Wages — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis